tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89340258342156281212024-03-13T11:29:06.726+00:00Not a Novelist (Yet)A blog about me and my writing.Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.comBlogger107125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-74177183300290580052023-12-31T17:55:00.003+00:002023-12-31T17:55:43.539+00:00"The best of luck!"<div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5z46Vv-Etb02iwxweIo0JRAwOElJ7SY9eunElYGM0abQF54scWklJRiGbUd_G-V61GuSR4elf1KPy5Mgx5PFWh88TWRhXGc2eazGtetw2hN1QXElOghgL9NPtKmNV6GeXPtBVq_JpSm2yQhmNfifInJJ10jYvmyGEiEKk9Yv9UYrdPJkz0o_2uu3fvvo/s3600/Pull%20montage.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3600" data-original-width="3600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5z46Vv-Etb02iwxweIo0JRAwOElJ7SY9eunElYGM0abQF54scWklJRiGbUd_G-V61GuSR4elf1KPy5Mgx5PFWh88TWRhXGc2eazGtetw2hN1QXElOghgL9NPtKmNV6GeXPtBVq_JpSm2yQhmNfifInJJ10jYvmyGEiEKk9Yv9UYrdPJkz0o_2uu3fvvo/w400-h400/Pull%20montage.png" width="400" /></a></div> </div><div style="text-align: left;">I've been having a look back at <a href="https://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2022/12/old-years-night.html">my New Year's Eve post from twelve months ago</a>, as is only natural as this year draws to a close, now into its final few hours here in the UK.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I mentioned in that post that in 2022 I'd written a draft of a new non-fiction book, and that "<i>...it looks as if it may appear sometime in 2023.</i>" In fact, I was underselling things a bit there. At that point I was probably about 90% sure it would be published this year, and I was also pretty confident that it was quite good.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Pull to Open </i>did indeed come out, somewhat delayed by various factors but it finally got there in August, and the response has been amazing. I'm very proud of the book, and incredibly pleased with how it has been received. There may, perhaps, even be something new coming on that score in 2024 - but once again I have to be slightly cagey about that, as nothing is anywhere near being definite yet.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In fact, there is more than one iron in the fire for exciting new writing possibilities in the New Year. Obviously I am well-aware that these things might not actually end up happening. They are only possibilities at the moment. But it is nice to at least have <i>something</i> to look forward to, in that respect; to be able to greet the passing of the year with the possibility of some fresh exciting prospects, rather than thinking all of the interesting things are now behind me.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Mind you, on that score, this time last year I was also talking about the radio documentaries I'd made. This year, there have been no radio documentaries, and sadly I don't think there ever will be again. That chapter of my career seems to be over and done with now. <a href="https://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2023/09/what-next.html"><i>Treasure Quest</i> also came to an end</a> - a huge wrench for me, and for many others. Not just the closing of a chapter, but the closing of an entire book.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I spent most of the year at risk of redundancy, but I was luckier than many - after six job interviews, or 'boards' as the BBC calls them, I managed to hang onto a role. A very different one to what I was doing before, but I do appreciate that I am one of the fortunate ones. I do still have a job.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And it enables me to still do interesting things. Last year I was writing about the George Russell documentary I made - and this year I got to have <a href="https://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2023/07/another-passion.html">even more of a play at covering Formula One</a>. I even <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0cdv535">produced an F1-based radio show for a few months</a>. I had a piece about the 60th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination go out on <i>The World Tonight</i> on Radio 4, and <a href="https://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2023/11/merry-who-mas.html">a <i>Doctor Who</i> 60th anniversary piece on the World Service</a> - an anniversary which saw me appear on around thirty different BBC stations in total in one form or another.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I also <a href="https://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2023/09/other-listings-magazines-are-available.html">wrote for the <i>Radio Times</i></a>, and for the BBC History website this year... Yes, it sounds as if I tot these things up as if they add some sense of value to my life. And hey, why not? It's as good a measure for me as anyone else's measures are for them.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Anybody who has enthusiastically followed Paul Kerensa's <i>British Broadcasting Century</i> podcast may well have been struck, as I was, by the words of Arthur Burrows on the BBC's 2LO station in London just after midnight on New Year's Day 1923 - the first ever New Year of the brand new BBC as a whole. Fitting that Burrows should be there to see the New Year in, as he'd been the first ever voice on the BBC the previous month.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I'd never heard this before Paul included it in <a href="https://bbcentury.podbean.com/e/out-with-the-old-the-first-bbc-new-year-s-eve/">his episode looking at that first BBC change of years</a> - which by coincidence also happened to be an episode on which I made a guest appearance, talking about my book <i>The Long Game</i>. Anyway, Burrows' actual words from the night were never recorded, going out live into the ether and that was that. But we do know what he said, and Paul recreated the moment for the podcast.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>"2LO wishes you a happy and prosperous New Year. May you have the best of luck - goodbye everybody, goodbye. And the best of luck!"</i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I was particularly taken with it was because of the way it captures two of those feelings of New Year's Eve and the passing of midnight. It feels, as the New Year often does, like one of those fleeting moments of camaraderie when we are all in this together. A sense of optimism and a willingness for everyone's hopes and dreams and ambitions for the next 12 months to be fulfilled, whatever they may be.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Before cold, hard reality sets in through the still, quiet dawn of January the 1st.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But still, I do like the sentiment. So, whoever you are, wherever you are and whatever you're doing - the best of luck!</div>Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-18555403138044149672023-12-30T14:55:00.001+00:002023-12-30T14:55:38.280+00:00A New World Somewhere<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVoB2hQ1wFJwYwAK0SUxjULrlg85w7AwfwMRwHakfIYVeGKnir-wjmD9e2IDdGyfOyUFk-u_PFW9uq9raSt2KJWI5tRkR8Kg__N9E7QH3wVy2uYVPVzbvC6FEzAShKessXqODqvSK0R79g8E1cuIk2-i2r916ZUbkRPWwwHiwOye2X0FwTGg9OLVmZmTo/s4000/20231230_103702.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVoB2hQ1wFJwYwAK0SUxjULrlg85w7AwfwMRwHakfIYVeGKnir-wjmD9e2IDdGyfOyUFk-u_PFW9uq9raSt2KJWI5tRkR8Kg__N9E7QH3wVy2uYVPVzbvC6FEzAShKessXqODqvSK0R79g8E1cuIk2-i2r916ZUbkRPWwwHiwOye2X0FwTGg9OLVmZmTo/w300-h400/20231230_103702.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's been many years, until now, since I last wrote for a fanzine. At least fifteen, I would say, and probably inching closer to twenty. There's no particular reason for this - I'm not anti-fanzine at all, and in my teens and early twenties wrote for them quite regularly, particularly for the <i>Doctor Who</i> Appreciation Society's <i>Celestial Toyroom</i>. It was certainly a boost to my confidence as a young and aspiring writer that other people thought my work worth publishing, even on an amateur basis. And it's always much better and more fun to write something which you know <i>is</i> actually going to be read by somebody!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It think it just happened that it became far easier to write for online - when I moved on from writing for <i>CT</i> I ended up writing quite a bit for the old Outpost Gallifrey <i>Doctor Who</i> fan site. It was a lot quicker and easier to get things put up, of course, and you got more of an instant reaction, so I sort of naturally fell into doing that. And then gradually did less and less fan writing at all as I became more involved with the BBC and my career there.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But anyway, all this serves as mere background to the fact that for the first time in many years, I <i>have</i> now written for a fanzine - although it seems almost disrespectful to call it that. <i>Vworp Vworp!</i> is an impressively put-together magazine, which comes out at irregular intervals and was originally based around <i>Doctor Who Magazine</i> and its comic strip. However, for the latest issue in this <i>Doctor Who</i> sixtieth anniversary year the sixth issue - more of a bookazine than a magazine, so laden with pieces is it - is all based around the show's very beginnings. If you're interested in that era, I highly recommend it - there are many fascinating articles on aspects you might not even have considered before, from a 'who's who' of writers whose names you'll know well if you have even a casual research interest in this era of British television history.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I was actually approached and asked if I would be interested in contributing a piece, given how I'd been researching the era for my own book <i>Pull to Open</i>. This, of course, I was very happy to do - as it gave me the opportunity to expand on a story I'd only had time to touch on briefly in <i>Pull to Open</i> itself. This was the story of director Rex Tucker, a name anyone interested in the creation of <i>Doctor Who</i> will recognise, and his efforts to get his own science-fiction serial <i>The Seekers</i> off the ground. What is that story? Well, I'm afraid you'll have to get hold of <a href="https://www.vworpvworp.co.uk/">your own copy of <i>Vworp Vworp!</i> issue six</a> to learn that!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqwdL8OVJrZH2IIOVbMTVL0cCFhXyjtAvjj7aWI59ulUz8Ggac_Xg9c7becqDuz-NzZJIM9sR4JbK-Ozxc7wYp3QGzAANae22Ntq1k0TJe4GS5dSamZBvWzMGGPbtMWPCzSjn_bUTiNIH4KGTncHJNhPIjAEaQA7pl15qVya8bJY-TxVudHsSXr21p6Hg/s4000/20231230_103725.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqwdL8OVJrZH2IIOVbMTVL0cCFhXyjtAvjj7aWI59ulUz8Ggac_Xg9c7becqDuz-NzZJIM9sR4JbK-Ozxc7wYp3QGzAANae22Ntq1k0TJe4GS5dSamZBvWzMGGPbtMWPCzSjn_bUTiNIH4KGTncHJNhPIjAEaQA7pl15qVya8bJY-TxVudHsSXr21p6Hg/w300-h400/20231230_103725.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Or <i>Pull to Open</i>, of course! Which continues to attract very kind comments from its readers. And perhaps even create exciting new opportunities for me - of which more, possibly, in the New Year, if anything comes of it.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But I think it's fair to say that the book has gone down better than I could ever have hoped. Since I last wrote on here I've been fortunate enough to appear on two further podcasts discussing it, <i><a href="https://www.podbean.com/media/share/dir-vsg5y-1c11133c">The Doctor Who Literature Podcast</a></i> and <a href="https://www.podbean.com/media/share/dir-nf755-1c1d88ad">the <i>Power of 3</i></a>. And AJ Black very kindly included me on <a href="https://culturalconversation.co.uk/2023/12/29/2023-in-books-my-top-10/">his list of his top-ten favourite books of 2023</a>, alongside some very big hitters!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjczzUrTVcvSVJBSw0zeVSl47EpJuXm7cDYmHts3DgG5C2jO_9ChTQqZm41CnFRkHeAer-nAeE2JSmQhwEzbuh8ZD-jLt9tjIB_JmmFNOLrMT2HmzTLe-BhhNRHhq0NKDQOgpIFd1m-zCyZGzZTyclARm68dyj8ZC5-MI81l-vgvEp1bVbUL68i2_67BsI/s9000/Montage%20number%203.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="9000" data-original-width="6000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjczzUrTVcvSVJBSw0zeVSl47EpJuXm7cDYmHts3DgG5C2jO_9ChTQqZm41CnFRkHeAer-nAeE2JSmQhwEzbuh8ZD-jLt9tjIB_JmmFNOLrMT2HmzTLe-BhhNRHhq0NKDQOgpIFd1m-zCyZGzZTyclARm68dyj8ZC5-MI81l-vgvEp1bVbUL68i2_67BsI/w266-h400/Montage%20number%203.png" width="266" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Pull to Open</i> is, I hardly need say, still <a href="https://tenacrefilms.bigcartel.com/product/pull-to-open-1962-1963">very much available from Ten Acre Films</a> if you're interested in having a read!</div>Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-89956118691702414282023-11-26T15:45:00.002+00:002023-11-26T16:10:39.943+00:00Mopping Up... Or Moping Up...?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMHNaa-ylGZQjpB_q1_Tz-rwAc4DtG4reaDduufN6aH3ALTc_BMDl6lzv7gPs-pUOB9xwL51z-3eoOmRYcxq3Y04RVArCpkBSDorH3x-o_JOKolwkpFmeLg9tR42GqOwwAp8i-oIH_evEQgyG1kCWblq-nivv91hJNrmaElXphqiIIQTv3IvHtsT_TuCQ/s1920/-2023-nov-26-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMHNaa-ylGZQjpB_q1_Tz-rwAc4DtG4reaDduufN6aH3ALTc_BMDl6lzv7gPs-pUOB9xwL51z-3eoOmRYcxq3Y04RVArCpkBSDorH3x-o_JOKolwkpFmeLg9tR42GqOwwAp8i-oIH_evEQgyG1kCWblq-nivv91hJNrmaElXphqiIIQTv3IvHtsT_TuCQ/w400-h225/-2023-nov-26-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Am I just a worthless parasite, leeching off other people’s
creativity?</div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><o:p> <br /></o:p>It’s a paranoia which does seize me, sometimes. Not often;
not all the time. But last night, watching last night’s very enjoyable return
of <i>Doctor Who</i>, I was at one point towards the end overcome with that melancholy
feeling of knowing I could never, ever do this. I could never do what Russell T
Davies does.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Now, he’s a genius of course, so it’s true that <i>most</i>
people can’t do what he does. So there shouldn’t be any need to feel bad
because I don’t have his talent and ability. His insight. And I long ago
realised that I would never be involved in actual <i>Doctor Who</i> itself. That
it wasn’t something to which I was naturally suited; wasn’t an industry which I
had any clue as to how to find any sort of place for myself in.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>And that’s fine. That’s okay. <i>Doctor Who</i> is my
favourite thing in all the world, but just because you love something doesn’t
mean you have to be a part of it. Football fans know they will never be a member
of the team, no matter how much it means to them, and how deeply embedded it is
in their lives.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p><i>Doctor Who</i> is designed to be watched, and enjoyed.
Indeed, that’s its sole reason for existing. The purpose of putting on a show
is to get an audience, to paraphrase Eric Maschwitz. And there is something
about <i>Doctor Who</i>, as with so many shows whose audiences are so
passionate, which fires people up to be creatively engaged. So many of us do so
according to our own talents. Whether that be making music inspired by it, or
creating art, or writing stories, or making reaction videos, or yes, studying
the history and wanting to find out more about how it was made, and sharing
that history with others. Sharing that love and enthusiasm.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Which you’d think would only be a good thing… But that
worry does take hold of me, every now and then. I’m so proud of writing books
and articles about this show, making radio pieces about it. Proud that I can be
a tiny little part of it in my professional life, be engaged with it and share
that engagement. But is it all just worthless? Would I not be better off trying
to create and do something of my own? Am I just a laughable figure, building so
much of my life around something to which I have made absolutely no contribution
whatsoever, and have never had anything to do with?<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>I think part of this latest mood of introspection was brought
on by my final radio piece about <i>Doctor Who</i> of the anniversary week. I’d
had the idea to do a piece about overseas fans of the show; getting an outside
perspective on this thing which is such a part of British popular culture. I pitched
the piece to <i>PM</i> on BBC Radio 4, and to my surprise and excitement they
liked it and went for it. I worked hard on it, I think I did a pretty good job
with it, but eventually it ended up just falling off the bottom of the show at
the end of the week.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Now, I should make it very clear this is not supposed to
be a moan about <i>PM</i>, or anything remotely like that. I am well aware that
when you make a light piece for a serious news programme like that, you are
always at the mercy of events. That’s the very nature of the beast. I
absolutely understand the precarious nature of that, and that there were and
are <i>far</i> more important things going on in the world. I’m not for a
moment saying they were in any way wrong to drop it. Had I been in the producer’s
chair, I’d have done exactly the same.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Yes, <a href="https://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2023/11/we-regret-to-announce.html">dropped by <i>Today</i></a> and by <i>PM</i> in the same
week. At least I’m being dropped by the <i>classy</i> programmes!<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>But it made me introspective because it would have meant <i>so</i>
much to me, to have had a piece about <i>Doctor Who</i>, that show I have loved
so much and for so long, going out on a network programme. To be a little part
of the anniversary on one of the national stations. Even after, across the anniversary period, ending up in either live or recorded form, as an interviewee or a package maker, across about 30 other BBC stations.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And it made me wonder… is
that really healthy? To be so invested in something so completely outside of my
control. To be a middle-aged man so <i>desperate</i> to pick up a few crumbs
and scraps from the network table. If you were good enough for this sort of
thing, Paul, you’d have been doing it regularly by now. Not just <i>occasionally</i>
getting almost-somewhere-close when there <i>happened</i> to be one of the <i>very</i>
few subjects you can make something to network standard about.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>And even stepping back from that moping, I had a hell of
a week – the Kennedy piece went out on <i>The World Tonight</i> on Radio 4, and
a version of my CNS <i>Doctor Who</i> piece went out on the World Service. That’s
not bad going at all.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Here is that <i>PM</i> piece by the way, if you fancy a
listen. I rather like it, and I was at least able to get it out on several of
the BBC Local Radio stations on Saturday, via my colleagues at CNS. So my interviewees
did get to go out on the BBC's airwaves, which I was pleased with:</div><div style="text-align: left;">
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="300" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1674378183&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true" width="100%"></iframe><div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Interstate, "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", Garuda, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><br /></div>But it’s all so dependant on other things. Other people’s
decisions. On events, dear boy, events. And all of this – studying <i>Doctor
Who</i>’s history, writing about it, making radio pieces about it – can make
you feel like a hanger-on. Or a vampire. Feasting on the lifeblood of something
created and maintained by others.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>I once watched an interview with the great Mark Lewisohn,
one of the most esteemed and respected chroniclers of British popular culture in
the second half of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, especially regarding The
Beatles. He’s even worked for The Beatles on all sorts of projects, helping to
chronicle their history as accurately as possible and preserve for ages the
facts rather than the anecdotes. And even he, possibly the most highly-regarded
person working in that field, related how he was once told by one member of the
band, dismissively: “you weren’t there.”<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>As if that makes any study conducted by him somehow
invalid.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>No, he wasn’t there, and would never claim to have been.
If you’re writing history you can’t pretend to know precisely how the
particular people involved thought and felt. But you can try your best to
relate what happened, often with a far wider overview of the situation and with
far more information available to you than anybody involved would have had at
the time.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Russel T Davies once wrote in <i>Doctor Who Magazine</i> that
the problem with telling stories of working on <i>Doctor Who</i>, and this
probably holds true for people’s involvement with any kind of popular endeavour,
is that as time goes past you start to remember and tell the tale of the <i>anecdote</i>
rather than what happened. To go back to The Beatles example, we saw the reassessment
of their late era which took place when a much wider selection of the footage
shot for <i>Let It Be</i> was made available in Peter Jackson’s <i>Get Back</i>.
Ringo Starr himself was surprised, remarking that for years he’d been remembering
the film of <i>Let It Be</i> rather than what actually happened.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>The same is true in <i>Doctor Who</i>. Sydney Newman,
when he started giving interviews about the creation of the show in the 1980s,
would tell the story of how he was asked to come up with something more
appealing that fusty old Dickens adaptations, the ‘classic serial’, for
Saturday teatimes.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Except that isn’t true.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr3QfsFvUujsR4RyEXaAaIIvOgQ9OqOeT0UDYy5xJ_j_bYS9l_I3SLyA7uEBss5BJM-2W_WUFl5JjO7AXBqsIGIssNJKpTFEe33JbmBFXRjLJ5SxM3PI6WXK1IpEZiu4VLC05KnQk1w9kyGvdRnZiyKtskwq1WtN2orFh94svXY79Hd2IWyxh0sfUkHKw/s1386/-2023-nov-26-003.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1060" data-original-width="1386" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr3QfsFvUujsR4RyEXaAaIIvOgQ9OqOeT0UDYy5xJ_j_bYS9l_I3SLyA7uEBss5BJM-2W_WUFl5JjO7AXBqsIGIssNJKpTFEe33JbmBFXRjLJ5SxM3PI6WXK1IpEZiu4VLC05KnQk1w9kyGvdRnZiyKtskwq1WtN2orFh94svXY79Hd2IWyxh0sfUkHKw/w400-h306/-2023-nov-26-003.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">There’d been no classic serials on Saturdays for <i>years</i>
by the point that Newman arrived. They were already well-established on
Sundays, where they remained for many years afterwards. It was true that he didn’t
like them, but they proved too popular for him to kill off and obviously 20 years
later he confused his memory of disliking the classic serials with the start of
<i>Doctor Who</i>, and had the one related to the other in his memory.</div> <o:p> <br /></o:p>Does pointing this out mean I like or respect the work of
Newman any the less? Of course not. Does it diminish him in anybody’s eyes? Not
a jot. I think it’s far more interesting, though, and revealing, to know what <i>actually</i>
happened. For the record, we don’t actually know <i>why</i> Stuart Hood and
Donald Baverstock decided they wanted a new type of children’s serial for the
Saturday teatime slot, but looking at what was <i>actually</i> there shows us
it was often a rag-tag assortment – film import westerns like <i>The Lone
Ranger</i> and <i>The Range Rider</i>; US cartoons such as <i>Top Cat </i>and <i>Deputy
Dawg</i>; home-made comedies like <i>Just William </i>and <i>Mr Pastry</i>; and
short-run BBC-made serials, most popularly the returning adventure of <i>Garry
Halliday</i>.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>I can’t tell you what Newman, Hood or Baverstock <i>thought</i>
of these. But I <i>can</i> tell you what happened – they were abandoned and
replaced with <i>Doctor Who</i>.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>And there are people out there who enjoy reading this kind
of history. I know, I have been one of them for <i>decades</i>. I know because
I’ve had lots of lovely reviews and kind comments for my work. So it’s not as
if there isn’t an audience for this. That there aren’t people who enjoy it…<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>But I still have that doubt. That nag. That paranoia. That
those who can do, and those who can’t write about it. About whether it’s a
worthwhile pastime. Or whether I am, as I say, just a parasite, feeding off the
success and the creativity of others.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Do people who write about other areas of non-fiction
worry about this, I wonder? Do people who write military history find
themselves seized with guilt at building their work on the misery, the
suffering, the death of so many people? Do sports writers worry they can never
truly know how it feels to be on the pitch, and that they are laughed at by those
who do? Do authors of true crime histories feel they take advantage of the fate
of their subjects?<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. But is it worse when you’re
writing about something <i>creative</i>? Often, writing about <i>writers</i>?<br /> <o:p> <br /></o:p>I enjoy doing it, don’t get me wrong. I do it <i>because</i>
I enjoy it. This isn’t a feeling which occupies me constantly. But it does nag
at me, every now and then. Especially when watching something like last night’s
<i>Doctor Who</i>, knowing that’s something I could never, ever do. That I could
never be involved with.<br /> <o:p> <br /></o:p>Oh, there was one more online piece, by the way, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxw1e1gev80o">from my local BBC News Online colleagues</a>, based on my Radio Norfolk <i>Doctor Who</i>
piece from Thursday. They put it up yesterday with a co-byline for me, although
that’s just a courtesy thing out of kindness – you couldn’t really say I wrote
much of this. But it is funny that it has Martin’s name on it too, as that’s
what ended up happening with <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-25051061">a <i>Doctor Who</i> piece he made from my radio
material ten year ago</a> as well.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>The more things change…</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGFGpQ15cn0hI37tLozRp0EpZJdaczk-YK-_KNmnSk1lSjrazxEFeH17mxVCefQc8Mt9xOPexeCnc8Qd-OFB970r1TeHnXuVLhY3nqIw9Gtqs3S8jjJcQGoeaOzWR3W5vHTvNXDlLFV1GmQlD6CRql2q58BTJseP0dzKmzJkiO97uwwUJo8y44c94c2gQ/s1297/screencapture-bbc-co-uk-news-articles-cxw1e1gev80o-2023-11-26-15_41_22.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1297" data-original-width="1044" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGFGpQ15cn0hI37tLozRp0EpZJdaczk-YK-_KNmnSk1lSjrazxEFeH17mxVCefQc8Mt9xOPexeCnc8Qd-OFB970r1TeHnXuVLhY3nqIw9Gtqs3S8jjJcQGoeaOzWR3W5vHTvNXDlLFV1GmQlD6CRql2q58BTJseP0dzKmzJkiO97uwwUJo8y44c94c2gQ/w323-h400/screencapture-bbc-co-uk-news-articles-cxw1e1gev80o-2023-11-26-15_41_22.png" width="323" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-6727120608539464062023-11-23T20:09:00.005+00:002023-11-23T23:52:10.861+00:00Merry Who-mas!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/doctor-who-60/feature/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="1062" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu0XC40u_Qw5FGOilRiidNj7Uy9igN3kjMVeshk2_TUh8hw8Wo-vK3YZg28Pe7CECPljmhQT02uCO0rQe36Ui7y98tuFgD49UvXHIdmDLVGMjtKKA7Ezz4kd2KiDi4FK4g0xa-RdJift3CWjE38Nw4JuqL9sTL3-2inl_JMLPtabFaPEj-9un1BMzjS84/w400-h163/Anniversary%201%20-%20header.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Earlier this year, I was asked by BBC History if I would
write their official <i>Doctor Who</i> 60<sup>th</sup> anniversary article. This
was, of course, extremely flattering, and one of the things I am most proud of in my BBC career and in my writing
career, given how much <i>Doctor Who</i> means to me, and how much it means to
the BBC.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><o:p> <br /></o:p>But, obviously, it was also quite a task. Sixty years of
history. How to try and sum up what that means, and why it is such a special
thing to so many people?<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>You can’t cover everything, of course. Or even a lot of
things. So, guided by some of what BBC History wanted to include, I tried to
write something simple and clean and clear which, hopefully, attempts to
show some of the power of the series.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Here’s what I came up with:<br /><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/doctor-who-60/feature/">https://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/doctor-who-60/feature/<br /></a><o:p> <br /></o:p>Today is the 23<sup>rd</sup> of November –
the anniversary of <i>Doctor Who</i>. Sixty years old this year. I suspect it’s
probably not uncommon for <i>Doctor Who</i> fans to take stock on this date; to
reflect on the passing of the years and where they’ve been in their lives when
this anniversary has rolled around at different stages, in the same way that you
might do for birthdays or Christmases. So, where have anniversaries past found me…?<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p><b>1993<br /></b>The first <i>Doctor Who</i> anniversary of which I was aware,
at the age of nine. I was already a dedicated and enthusiastic fan of the
series by this stage, so very interested in everything that was going on. I
remember being very excited by the “Look Who’s Back – in 3D!” <i>Radio Times</i>
cover, promoting what turned out to be a bit of a disappointing mini-return in
aid of Children in Need with <i>Dimensions in Time</i>. The <i>Radio Times</i>
issue itself was great, though, and I kept it and pored over the articles
inside – I think my copy is probably still up in the box of my things in my
parents’ attic.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi__2tF7yPAMFFBSeuFWgwgAJ2DX8CvtKtZtH1B-RvbSGW6syIfoUGm_BDLp4PHvxQrQ0VAar1-yfuVzA7a-lPvj9CnXsQvTC5WL5d0OzdCWse0QblOaz9E0aK_pbSab7O3LNmTkg0LiuUlrTXR-2ynQD3mYEAvQE-ViLPXG8XNQrYy_L0jY8OSEXUcbz8/s1154/Radio%20Times%201993.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1154" data-original-width="865" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi__2tF7yPAMFFBSeuFWgwgAJ2DX8CvtKtZtH1B-RvbSGW6syIfoUGm_BDLp4PHvxQrQ0VAar1-yfuVzA7a-lPvj9CnXsQvTC5WL5d0OzdCWse0QblOaz9E0aK_pbSab7O3LNmTkg0LiuUlrTXR-2ynQD3mYEAvQE-ViLPXG8XNQrYy_L0jY8OSEXUcbz8/w300-h400/Radio%20Times%201993.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">The actual anniversary itself was on a Tuesday, and I watched
a VHS of <i>The Five Doctors</i> borrowed from my friend Alex, who was the only
person I knew at the time who was also interested in the show. He grew out of
it, I never did! It was only ten years old then, but felt very old, very archive. Probably not surprising when that was longer than I'd been alive for. I'd love to know if something from ten years ago feels like archive material to a child of nine now.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I had seen it before, round Alex’s house, which was probably
fortunate as I clearly recall my viewing being interrupted by my sister throwing
a deflated whoopee cushion at me – don’t ask! – and knocking over a cup of tea
I had next to me onto the sofa. This caused my dad to angrily take said whoopee
cushion out to his shed and cut it up with a Stanley knife. The things which
stick in the memory!</div><o:p> <br /></o:p>What I do remember particularly strongly are the
documentaries – <i><a href="https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/6841f948f055481c8b63a56f5051c780">30 Years in the TARDIS</a> </i>shown on BBC1 on the Monday
after the anniversary, the 29<sup>th</sup>, but especially the Radio 2
documentary <i><a href="https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/92b45ba11aba4d929964ebc6609070ed">Doctor Who – 30 Years</a></i>, which had gone out the Saturday <i>before</i>
the anniversary, the 20<sup>th</sup>. Which I was surprised at when I looked it
up – it was so clearly lodged in my mind as a Sunday when we sat in the living
room and listened to it. The memory does indeed cheat.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Anyway, I recorded it onto cassette tape – having to turn
it over partway through! – and listened to it repeatedly over the following
years. So much of that documentary is deeply etched onto my brain, and I can
see echoes of it, and deliberate references to it, in so much of my own radio
work, both in my documentaries and in some of my shorter features. It opened
with that dramatic clip of Jimmy Kingsbury announcing that President Kennedy
had been shot, with which I opened by own piece about the BBC’s coverage of
that event <a href="https://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2023/11/we-regret-to-announce.html">which I mentioned in yesterday’s entry</a> – it’s the obvious piece of
archive to use, but of course that connection was on my mind when I did it.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Speaking of which, do you remember how I said I was sad
that my Kennedy piece was dropped by <i>Today</i>? Well, I discovered today that a slightly cut-down version of it <i>did</i> actually get a network airing on BBC Radio 4,
last night. It went out as the final item on yesterday’s <i>The World Tonight</i>
– so, for a few minutes, I was indeed at the helm of HMS BBC for a bit after
all!<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p><b>2003<br /></b>Ten years on, and as a 19-year-old student I was in my second
year studying English Literature at the University of East Anglia in Norwich,
and of course still very much a <i>Doctor Who</i> fan, even with everything
else which might have changed about me over the intervening decade.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZc_Z7yZGieC3_8OpwOaS7x4tRRnDmEPLb3YUwXvpVL-VaNA4fVfnkrPUbwCSkze3R2DJKpq7US5TnQvIwNcuwGWRLnrCxi3zmJTwn2rCbXNUZEXEKJbg8gjTGWFA-j1RFQc4WZgu1UjXsrZW99y9wKJoLgXvDkn4J_Y-kzxS-dAtCJORv4-lFN1Vkxz4/s2106/Supplement%20-%20Page%201.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2106" data-original-width="1530" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZc_Z7yZGieC3_8OpwOaS7x4tRRnDmEPLb3YUwXvpVL-VaNA4fVfnkrPUbwCSkze3R2DJKpq7US5TnQvIwNcuwGWRLnrCxi3zmJTwn2rCbXNUZEXEKJbg8gjTGWFA-j1RFQc4WZgu1UjXsrZW99y9wKJoLgXvDkn4J_Y-kzxS-dAtCJORv4-lFN1Vkxz4/w290-h400/Supplement%20-%20Page%201.JPG" width="290" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">This was the first time I had the opportunity and the
inclination to try and do something for the anniversary myself, in terms of a
creative endeavour. One of the things I’d become involved with as a teenager
was the Brighton Area <i>Doctor Who</i> Appreciation Society, although obviously
from the time I’d left to go away to university the previous year this
association was from a distance.</div><o:p> <br /></o:p>I’d edited their newsletter, and although I’d handed over
the reins when I left, from Norwich I put together a special edition of it for
the anniversary, which my friend Tim printed and distributed – to all of the
dozen or so members! – back in Sussex. I also ended up writing most of the content,
but had great fun doing so!<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>It was a slightly strange time, as the recommissioning of
the show had been announced in September but its arrival, and even its
production, was still a long way off. We had the online animated version <i>Scream
of the Shalka</i> and I bought the CD of the Big Finish Productions anniversary story <i>Zagreus</i>,
which I found confusing and disappointing. The announcement of the return had
sparked me into becoming a bit more involved with online fandom, and I had begun
to become a bit of a regular amateur ‘stringer’, of sorts, for the much-loved <i>Doctor
Who News Page</i> run by Shaun Lyon on Outpost Gallifrey, scouring online sources for any news to pass on.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>On the anniversary itself, a Sunday this time around, I
actually re-watched the first serial on a VHS borrowed from Norwich library! My
tape of the serial was boxed up back home in Sussex, it wasn’t out on DVD yet,
and online streaming didn’t yet really exist. This may have been one of the
last times I watched a <i>Doctor Who</i> story on a commercial VHS release.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p><b>2013<br /></b>Still in Norwich, now aged 29 and working as a full-time
member of staff for the BBC. Working for the BBC! I never could have
imagined such a thing twenty years earlier. I would have been very excited to
have known that it would one day happen, though – and even more so to know that
it would mean I would be able to have some sort of professional involvement with
the series I loved so much.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01knzww" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="882" data-original-width="1212" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF4m_llHoOQuDbhNRLDCGexCz-eRrbRVnYxiGZFTuFG__4eV5Ltmxe90Hx4hWPZQyGwIVng6o-Fv9Z1AF1D1zTDcRhg2tv9F7eSyaGyqWGHhnxtq6XMnm_Qk_nenxMX_taxnxmKPCxEPQpkp3nj6w4XcQF73xbcBm5krRhMAVlEWY7bBZ9B4Pw55HT34c/w400-h291/Anniversary%202013.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">The previous year, all of the BBC Local Radio stations
had done something called “My Beatles Story” – marking the 50<sup>th</sup>
anniversary of the release of their first single. The idea was to find people
living in the area you covered who had some interesting story about, passion
for or connection to The Beatles, and record features of them telling their
tales to run on the chosen day.</div><o:p> <br /></o:p>I’d already started by this stage to get myself a little
bit of a reputation within the station for an ability for documentary and
feature work, and I’d been chosen – admittedly probably because few others
would have been either interested or had the time – to be the person in charge of the
BBC Radio Norfolk “My Beatles Story” pieces. I’d managed to do quite a
few rather nice pieces for the day itself, and had <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p011xps2">put a compilation of them together</a> for Christmas 2012.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>The following year, then, when I heard whispers that we’d
be following this up across BBC Local Radio with “My <i>Doctor Who</i> Story”,
I was <i>desperate</i> to be the one to do it. In truth, I probably once again
didn’t really have much in the way of competition, but I was very relieved to
once again be the one asked to do it.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Ten years on, I still think that 13 features I managed to
put together for “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01knzww">Norfolk’s <i>Doctor Who</i> Stories</a>” are some of the best
pieces I have made in my radio career. I think they had the right combination
of knowing enough about the subject to ensure that they were conveying what the
interviewee was saying and what they remembered in an accurate and insightful
way, but I had enough radio craft by then to be able to make them engaging and
accessible for a general listenership. I was and remain very proud of them, and
was particularly pleased that more than one colleague of mine who had no
particular interest in <i>Doctor Who</i> told me how good they thought they had
been.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>It was also, of course, a great thrill to be doing actual
<i>Doctor Who</i>-related work for the BBC. So much of the reason why I have
ended up working for the BBC, and why I am so proud to do so, is because of the
interest in broadcasting and its history which was sparked by reading about and
becoming interested in <i>Doctor Who</i> and <i>its </i>history. The material I came up with in 2013 even got
<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/doctorwho/entries/97876684-2940-3ed7-90bb-8dae57292749">a plug on the BBC <i>Doctor Who</i> website</a>, which
pleased me no end.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>They were important pieces for my career outside of radio,
too. One of them was <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01lzcg0">with the writer David Fisher</a>, and I came up with the idea
of fashioning the interview into a piece for <i>Doctor Who Magazine</i>, which
they accepted the following year and <a href="https://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2015/01/a-good-start-to-year.html">eventually published in early 2015</a>. This
led on to eventually doings all sorts of other bits and pieces for them, which
has in turn helped to lead on to even more other things.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWoiSrE7Taqq-5xWrK3Mw6RcFp0t1KiiyH0NcNyEP57xGtpmS-Zxp35dgOf30wSLxgvsnDGLigij0p5YskU6hLBHR-H4npxQnDO-pquUSwc6JDHmU4aHR2hE4C_xPi6NyyKntaBh093TS1LEz3W0KBkxhO1XIAmjfjHCMEkhMTLjSJMhTWxPFsxWKcI6A/s3648/P1080803.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2736" data-original-width="3648" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWoiSrE7Taqq-5xWrK3Mw6RcFp0t1KiiyH0NcNyEP57xGtpmS-Zxp35dgOf30wSLxgvsnDGLigij0p5YskU6hLBHR-H4npxQnDO-pquUSwc6JDHmU4aHR2hE4C_xPi6NyyKntaBh093TS1LEz3W0KBkxhO1XIAmjfjHCMEkhMTLjSJMhTWxPFsxWKcI6A/w400-h300/P1080803.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">The anniversary itself was a Saturday, and I actually
took time off work that weekend so I <a href="https://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2013/11/going-home.html">could travel down to Sussex and watch the special</a>, <i>The Day of the Doctor</i>, in the same living room in which I’d
fallen in love with the show all those years ago. Although I think the absolute
highlight of the anniversary for me had probably come earlier in the month,
when I’d had the chance to <a href="https://reviews.doctorwhonews.net/2013/11/adventure-review-13112013003015.html">attend the premiere of <i>An Adventure in Space and
Time</i> at the British Film Institute</a> in London, which was a very moving
experience.</div><o:p> <br /></o:p><b>2023<br /></b>Still in Norwich, still at the BBC, and now at the age of
39 becoming a middle-aged man, recently switched to being a newsreader rather than a producer, too. There wasn’t really any concerted effort to do any
BBC Local Radio-wide celebration of the anniversary this time around. Perhaps
partly because a 60<sup>th</sup> doesn’t seem quite the same landmark as a 50<sup>th</sup>,
perhaps partly because fashions and trends change for such things, perhaps
purely because there are different demands and requirements of the service now.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>But it has to be said I have not been short of work or excitement
for this one!</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaY4ZTK_04nkqT-uIQJp2nobn_U1x2bJv1SBS2LY-AFV4hTsPc63hKWY_EDY5UIzmvXXEuTeFA0fKXLOB5XT9W5HiV-W6EjfNeVvqU35l1PjrkOYJ34Nj7C58rUmC4nAgdu3nY3uXAyEVnu0Bq8TzlD4h-9kRBkQpXGrHqhZDB7FLvu53yUf2Be6qWAX0/s4000/20231123_080236.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaY4ZTK_04nkqT-uIQJp2nobn_U1x2bJv1SBS2LY-AFV4hTsPc63hKWY_EDY5UIzmvXXEuTeFA0fKXLOB5XT9W5HiV-W6EjfNeVvqU35l1PjrkOYJ34Nj7C58rUmC4nAgdu3nY3uXAyEVnu0Bq8TzlD4h-9kRBkQpXGrHqhZDB7FLvu53yUf2Be6qWAX0/w400-h300/20231123_080236.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>I only did one piece for Norfolk this time around – I really
wasn’t sure what else I could do after all those pieces a decade ago. But I was
able to tell some new stories, particularly focusing on Patrick Troughton’s
time serving in the Royal Navy in Great Yarmouth during the Second World War,
for which I was able to interview his son Michael.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Having learned while researching <i>Pull to Open</i> that
Sydney Newman had once lived in Durrington, and having known that William
Hartnell once lived in Worthing, I was able to pitch to Radio Sussex the idea
of a bespoke piece for them based around that, which they kindly accepted. So I
was able to do <a href="https://soundcloud.com/paul-hayes-882952482/doctor-who-60th-anniversary-bbc-radio-sussex-package">a BBC piece about <i>Doctor Who</i> which opens in my parents’
living room!</a> That may be taking the idea of ‘local radio’ to extremes, I know,
but it was a good piece – I promise!<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>BBC History had recommended me as a <i>Doctor Who </i>‘expert’
to the Central News Service, CNS, the part of the BBC which provides the Local
Radio stations with material related to national news stories, and general feature
items. They asked me to do a <i>Doctor Who</i> piece which the stations could
run today, and thanks to BBC Radiophonic Workshop archivist Mark Ayres I was even
able to include in it a little treasure not broadcast for 60 years – a recording
of the actual continuity announcement into the very first episode of the show. An edit of this piece even ended up <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w172z2tp6t8cq5t">going out on the BBC World Service this evening</a> - hello world!<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>CNS also offered me up to stations for two-ways to talk
about the anniversary and the show, so I spent two hours this morning in our
little broom cupboard studio in Norwich speaking to presenters across the
country. Which was actually really good fun, and by the end I was a bit sad
there weren’t still more to go! Having been on the other end of that process so
many times over the past 15 years, it was fascinating to experience it from
that perspective, too. I think I gave good value, and overall today I ended up
appearing, in either recorded or live interview form, on I think 24 stations,
from Radio Cornwall all the way up to Radio Scotland, who aren’t served by CNS
but separately asked me if I’d have a chat this lunchtime!<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>There may also be one more radio piece to come – I will
keep you posted…<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>BBC History also helped to make the anniversary even more
special for me by inviting me to be on a panel of speakers they assembled for an
internal BBC event held yesterday at Broadcasting House to help mark the
anniversary. I was of course delighted to be asked, although I did feel
slightly out of place, given all the other speakers were actual, proper people
who are really involved with the programme and its associated activities in one
way or another!</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvecXwRrCS8sZddWqQ95isk9G1fN_Fc7U_lzOXj8rq256zV-mMHgL0MrXBeIQJezThlgBe4G7LtcaSTJDByhIXgncvX6W0oqyCsTfBH7pc9cgK1SujcCZ4CYVPjXDM2nrsDJbJl7gyh9gPDnKP8PXHl4N0Rl5dhAsHwTXAvH27sJsamupg88P4gXOjhE0/s800/F_eNdOOWAAUn0G2%20(1).png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="716" data-original-width="800" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvecXwRrCS8sZddWqQ95isk9G1fN_Fc7U_lzOXj8rq256zV-mMHgL0MrXBeIQJezThlgBe4G7LtcaSTJDByhIXgncvX6W0oqyCsTfBH7pc9cgK1SujcCZ4CYVPjXDM2nrsDJbJl7gyh9gPDnKP8PXHl4N0Rl5dhAsHwTXAvH27sJsamupg88P4gXOjhE0/w400-h358/F_eNdOOWAAUn0G2%20(1).png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">But it was a lovely event to be a part of, and once again
it felt very pleasing indeed to be a part of the BBC’s own celebrations of that
show that I love. It was nice to have the chance to visit Broadcasting House again,
too – the first time I’d been there for a few years. If you work there every
day perhaps you get used to it, but on the few occasions I have been there is
always that little thrill. That sense of history; of being a part of that heritage.</div><o:p> <br /></o:p>There have been other bits and pieces, too… Aside from my
having written a book about the creation of the show this year, of course! <a href="https://scifibulletin.com/2023/11/23/a-fortuitous-flight/">An
article today about <i>Flight into Danger</i>’s link to <i>Doctor Who</i></a> for
Sci-Fi Bulletin… Another online piece for the BBC which should appear over the
weekend…<br /> <o:p> <br /></o:p>Oh yes, and the anniversary itself. Well, I watched <i>An
Unearthly Child</i> at a quarter past five. How could you now? It would be rude
not to!<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Happy birthday, <i>Doctor Who</i>. And Merry <i>Who</i>-mas
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<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p></div>Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-16285400470065229852023-11-22T22:26:00.003+00:002023-11-22T22:27:50.025+00:00"We regret to announce..."<div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/breaking-news" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="561" data-original-width="783" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPYNEoZr1RC-ps1FIW-6_JWPTEppdDkVf2werm2PoG3UzEJTLtaF0K5pMssQrXCqki3Qb7mW1OHtNN_O-TSLHdb6b-vb_djI3DWQ7z7doXIN_rGxSi4zUNyguJHdjGiNbo2KZlaMjZR0QWjPPwWO8rb7GmG040PGQFIx6gRLgGpX_bCGwIsZJoly_mOEU/w400-h286/2023-11-22%20-%202155%20-%20BBC%20History%20homepage.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Sixty years ago today, a man was murdered.</div></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">There will have been many murders that day, across the world. But this one was heard about all around that world. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">An innocent man was shot to death, next to his wife.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's worth keeping that in mind, I know, when you discuss the idea of the assassination of President Kennedy as an object of fascination and discussion. I know who he was, the position that he held, meant that his death transcended "mere" murder. Just as everything about his life did, once he held that office, and indeed probably as soon as he ran for it.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But you still need to call it what it was, every so often, just to remind yourself.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I freely admit it's been something which has interested me for years. Not in terms of conspiracy theories or anything like that, but because of the place it occupies in time and culture. The events with which it is indelibly associated. Including, of course, the creation of <i>Doctor Who</i>, which made its debut the very next day.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">That place it holds in the cultural sphere is absolutely fascinating, as is how the BBC reacted to the news that evening, November 22, 1963. I dedicated an entire chapter of my new book <i><a href="https://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/search/label/Pull%20to%20Open">Pull to Open</a> </i>to it, and even a reviewer who didn't like *all* of the book felt that this was "<a href="https://sfwmagazine.com/2023/11/09/book-review-pull-to-open/">an emotional chapter, showcasing his ability as a writer.</a>" Other people have said it was the best chapter, too, and it was certainly my favourite to write, I think.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So I thought perhaps I could bring some of that story to a wider audience, perhaps even through my day job. I made a radio package about the BBC's coverage of the Kennedy assassination, and submitted it to the <i>Today</i> programme on BBC Radio 4. They liked it, and almost ran it today, but alas breaking news meant they had to drop it. That's okay, obviously. I understand that - a news programme ought always to be beholden to the present rather than the past.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">A shorter version did go around to the BBC Local Radio stations thanks to my colleagues at the BBC's Central News Service, but as the full version is unlikely ever to see the light of day otherwise, here it is:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="300" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1671974064&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true" width="100%"></iframe><div><br /></div><div>As a tie-in, the wonderful people at BBC History have also <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/breaking-news">published an article I have written</a>, going into more detail about the events of that evening from a BBC perspective. It's always nice to be able to have a piece on the BBC website, and I'm very grateful to them for taking it and putting it up there.</div>Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-11337711477260384222023-11-18T16:14:00.007+00:002023-11-18T16:51:06.783+00:00Cover Story<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIW4h7f7dVcV_n73o8WbTfD_9rAQsvuu4S_U1zG8MCsqnv50IKKwP1_idXT1j5JrSAQHR8y0D6csj6iNgatL7VJ2tFIOFSBaclFTHbq5hlbBtdqKMUH9wZ_gzu6fjE8dUTizFWcZcS9mYxT_jzBvw4b1BGum1bLVBxlJetgSFO3HRzhAZuddguWGGeHZs/s2362/RT%20cover,%2014%20Nov%202023.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2362" data-original-width="1764" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIW4h7f7dVcV_n73o8WbTfD_9rAQsvuu4S_U1zG8MCsqnv50IKKwP1_idXT1j5JrSAQHR8y0D6csj6iNgatL7VJ2tFIOFSBaclFTHbq5hlbBtdqKMUH9wZ_gzu6fjE8dUTizFWcZcS9mYxT_jzBvw4b1BGum1bLVBxlJetgSFO3HRzhAZuddguWGGeHZs/w299-h400/RT%20cover,%2014%20Nov%202023.jpeg" width="299" /></a></div><br /><div>I wrote <a href="https://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2023/09/other-listings-magazines-are-available.html">a few weeks ago</a> about how proud I was to have been asked to do a little piece for the 100th anniversary issue of the <i>Radio Times</i>. I hadn't really expected this to be anything other than a one-off, so you can imagine how pleased I was to be approached to do another piece for them - about, you've guessed it, <i>Doctor Who</i>!</div><div><br /></div><div>This coming Thursday, the 23rd, is the 60th anniversary of <i>Doctor Who</i> - about which a lot more to come on this blog! The <i>Radio Times</i> of course have a long-lasting relationship with the series, and although they aren't publishing their actual <i>Doctor Who</i> anniversary issue until next week - due to their listings starting on a Saturday, and the first of the anniversary specials going out on Saturday the 25th - they still wanted a piece for the issue which covers the anniversary date itself.</div><div><br /></div><div>So they asked me if I could perhaps write an article looking at that relationship between the magazine and the show, and highlighting a few of the many, many covers they have dedicated to it down the decades. Which, of course, I was only too pleased to do! The issue came out this week, and it was nice to see that my article gained one of the cover lines!</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkzg4YhC0wMtScxUNQhQuvRrLjIx0lp5C9Qv6A0WZL6szPEQoVO1FBmnO6e9sfLbfq5Kcm1vN3NId1AWl7z7vVAFeyIn2MR54qJah9xIzolx7fJ0qAQT46QXz1BB8xRkZHcHNO4QEtZNlJoPNOVkNZzRUCo2h7Q3kbE4zzbijpOCJzE4Ilz5JStZRpsxc/s4000/20231118_120052.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkzg4YhC0wMtScxUNQhQuvRrLjIx0lp5C9Qv6A0WZL6szPEQoVO1FBmnO6e9sfLbfq5Kcm1vN3NId1AWl7z7vVAFeyIn2MR54qJah9xIzolx7fJ0qAQT46QXz1BB8xRkZHcHNO4QEtZNlJoPNOVkNZzRUCo2h7Q3kbE4zzbijpOCJzE4Ilz5JStZRpsxc/w300-h400/20231118_120052.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #01ffff;"><i>I couldn't resist taking this picture of the magazine out and about "in the wild"!</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div>There should be more <i>Doctor Who</i> items to share this week, in both written and audio form. I'm very fortunate indeed in that, in my own little way, I get to help share in the celebration of this show which means so much to me.</div><div><br /></div><div>And luckier still of course to have been able to have had another book about that show published this year. I have continued to receive some good notices for <i>Pull to Open</i>, with <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199340828">some very kind reviews on Goodreads</a>, a <a href="https://culturalconversation.co.uk/2023/10/03/pull-to-open-the-inside-story-of-how-the-bbc-created-and-launched-doctor-who-paul-hayes-book-review-author-interview/">nice review and interview from AJ Black</a>, and <a href="https://thedoctorwhocompanion.com/2023/11/02/reviewed-pull-to-open-the-inside-story-of-how-the-bbc-created-and-launched-doctor-who/">a glowing piece about the book on the <i>Doctor Who Companion</i> website</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>It should be an exciting week coming up - and an enjoyable one whatever happens. I'm really pleased that I was able to get <i>Pull to Open</i> written and published in time to be a part of it all.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1zp1iRv2Sxj0fBp08UYbgqRT9ESjbLiNmM4RD8uieUH6UX9flNeS9yLHzswNncw80ASuNGip2aakgvfAfoafgPJczlV4KgA0ptdkg8GFkzzPKaOAKB5IwjhdekpVzsIq7tenM5O5f0my1RK-zs4g4oyylDWcYmY5r0GBkPZ9oO1PLitJl3YLaauv4r-M/s3600/RT%20montage.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3600" data-original-width="2400" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1zp1iRv2Sxj0fBp08UYbgqRT9ESjbLiNmM4RD8uieUH6UX9flNeS9yLHzswNncw80ASuNGip2aakgvfAfoafgPJczlV4KgA0ptdkg8GFkzzPKaOAKB5IwjhdekpVzsIq7tenM5O5f0my1RK-zs4g4oyylDWcYmY5r0GBkPZ9oO1PLitJl3YLaauv4r-M/w266-h400/RT%20montage.png" width="266" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-18503196007484239872023-09-28T15:38:00.006+01:002023-11-18T16:16:20.468+00:00Other Listings Magazines Are Available<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRJ4jZChTXYoaX_mgL2H8zpq6F4O_ykcSlKQ6VOnp_gZy60wX9tHtuRGuL6Q0ixfvlwGcVhQos18wpSBpQDr_EQR7M6n313Aa_Oq3JdWne3k4r1U1xt-_WxJnEx6pPA0jk4eF80fbrWr_3c5MavJtce-Qn5Q5etRx-q6dsyaT_6B2b8edboXaZzCSugOg/s780/Radio%20Times%20cover.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="780" data-original-width="584" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRJ4jZChTXYoaX_mgL2H8zpq6F4O_ykcSlKQ6VOnp_gZy60wX9tHtuRGuL6Q0ixfvlwGcVhQos18wpSBpQDr_EQR7M6n313Aa_Oq3JdWne3k4r1U1xt-_WxJnEx6pPA0jk4eF80fbrWr_3c5MavJtce-Qn5Q5etRx-q6dsyaT_6B2b8edboXaZzCSugOg/w300-h400/Radio%20Times%20cover.png" width="300" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Last year <a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-bbc-and-me.html">I wrote about the 100th anniversary of the BBC</a>, and why I was so proud to be associated with it. Today marks the centenary of another British cultural institution, one which for most of its history until being sold off in 2011 was a part of the BBC, and indeed was its official "organ". For it is 100 years ago today since the first issue of the <i>Radio Times</i> listings magazine was published - and to my surprise, but no little pleasure, I have found myself also becoming associated with the magazine for its centenary special issue.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">We were always a <i>Radio Times</i> household when I was growing up. I am just about old enough to remember the pre-deregulation days when we would get both the <i>Radio Times</i> and the <i>TV Times</i> to have both sets of listings. But, like many households in the UK, once they were both publishing each other's we got both for precisely one more week before deciding on which side our bread was buttered and continuing with the <i>Radio Times</i> alone.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I can remember it feeling like one of the signs of being an independent grown-up when, after having moved away to go to university, I had to start buying my own copy if I wanted one. I think the magazine is a great cultural time capsule, too. For TV and radio history, obviously, but also for the more wider popular culture of the time, too. Just the other day I was browsing some covers of issues from 1989, and I think you'd find it hard to have a better barometer of just who and what were in the public consciousness in any given era of Britain in the second half of the 20th century than the covers from across those decades.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigeleKx-NFaNANWWPUU68aMnr27IFiRTQPXRiydDRVga3-IBYUqB7PYahQqQKZjNZnmvRR2DPfx_pmEPX77IXKnwInqO_fBRJd5UyzY8ZCvSLCbvSEz7TETAVPfqmer5kRG1xPzQFliqKP8p4WRyQeMtUCgQRs2Yt1Upge7pPjXNduC7lyi_re7f8fA9Y/s2048/Senna%20-%20Radio%20Times.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1464" data-original-width="2048" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigeleKx-NFaNANWWPUU68aMnr27IFiRTQPXRiydDRVga3-IBYUqB7PYahQqQKZjNZnmvRR2DPfx_pmEPX77IXKnwInqO_fBRJd5UyzY8ZCvSLCbvSEz7TETAVPfqmer5kRG1xPzQFliqKP8p4WRyQeMtUCgQRs2Yt1Upge7pPjXNduC7lyi_re7f8fA9Y/w400-h286/Senna%20-%20Radio%20Times.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgehyphenhyphenu_a6zdmYJuLnp05mmSGdcRACAlzfRHbRCTxtaPW4GhQHiF_XhqYJf8buhzXBiHZqOO-Zpdeoq6RHo43sI9EIZgNPAE2XgkhupQ6FGIhnjSqmJtZaSKbxBwxmQaPc9-jLM1dCV1394iHXA2eF7vJgs0yHRdI7XVdAfKOpmW1emLFBwdgLWT2WMtvsg/s2048/Choice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="588" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgehyphenhyphenu_a6zdmYJuLnp05mmSGdcRACAlzfRHbRCTxtaPW4GhQHiF_XhqYJf8buhzXBiHZqOO-Zpdeoq6RHo43sI9EIZgNPAE2XgkhupQ6FGIhnjSqmJtZaSKbxBwxmQaPc9-jLM1dCV1394iHXA2eF7vJgs0yHRdI7XVdAfKOpmW1emLFBwdgLWT2WMtvsg/w184-h640/Choice.jpg" width="184" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I've been very proud to have had <a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-boy-from-brazil.html">a couple of</a> <a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2022/01/extra-extra.html">my documentaries</a> selected as "Today's Choices" in the radio pages down the years, and even to have once managed to get them to play along with printing a clue within the magazine for <i>Treasure Quest</i>. But I was even more proud earlier this month to rather unexpectedly find myself asked to write a small piece for them - and not for any old issue, either, but for the centenary special.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP2F0iW2LX3I-CW6mt-aC4Cf3_Hk1cY2MMCs1FzjqHaYKtVgpcvBSg_ihnZjabjW1r580qUxgdJ1pRfa2oxfJTnDW3bXsTMgQISNqkeSbieOFc1a0SMXhawx6jFHY5x6i2h2kWJVa2RnNmv0pGBofG2cnLIOIjQU6_6aOMSsDuoYkP_smxsRRgfnE4Y0w/s4000/20230919_123936.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP2F0iW2LX3I-CW6mt-aC4Cf3_Hk1cY2MMCs1FzjqHaYKtVgpcvBSg_ihnZjabjW1r580qUxgdJ1pRfa2oxfJTnDW3bXsTMgQISNqkeSbieOFc1a0SMXhawx6jFHY5x6i2h2kWJVa2RnNmv0pGBofG2cnLIOIjQU6_6aOMSsDuoYkP_smxsRRgfnE4Y0w/w400-h300/20230919_123936.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioDOZilxkDcyD66Joqhs1yX22BTCRn7v5cCS6XZ8SW-SnC1P7hDqj1KeisWFAE-LpLehAgmlNwcrEOTxIrKLeNoybEn8KBbFnHSrOVhUVEqCuYJw8ZO0L9LGprmwJ5Tj-viRV0831Fdc0hwBAKdW26X1qO90b_iX95GO168LStCWqCXvWWFUmf6kDuWyY/s4000/20230919_124058.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioDOZilxkDcyD66Joqhs1yX22BTCRn7v5cCS6XZ8SW-SnC1P7hDqj1KeisWFAE-LpLehAgmlNwcrEOTxIrKLeNoybEn8KBbFnHSrOVhUVEqCuYJw8ZO0L9LGprmwJ5Tj-viRV0831Fdc0hwBAKdW26X1qO90b_iX95GO168LStCWqCXvWWFUmf6kDuWyY/w400-h300/20230919_124058.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's a short feature about Eric Maschwitz, one of the early editors of the <i>Radio Times</i> and a fascinating character - a lyricist who wrote the words to <i>A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square</i>; a screenwriter who co-wrote the screenplay for <i>Goodbye, Mr Chips</i>; a radio executive who created <i>In Town Tonight</i>; and even a spy involved with counter-intelligence operations in neutral New York in the early days of the Second World War.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">He also, in one of his latter roles as a BBC television executive, had a part in the chain of events which led to the creation of <i>Doctor Who</i>. Which is why I wrote about him in <i>Pull to Open</i>, and why I in turn ended up being asked to write this short piece.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So, happy birthday <i>Radio Times</i>. And thank you for letting me become a small part of that history!</div>Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-30423717948795533942023-09-17T11:03:00.014+01:002023-09-17T11:52:53.264+01:00What Next...?<div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTiTOJStOdteWa7p4Mkx6-5XUexGrZCEYA2cj-krY5gRiZNYYUlBb68-_HZ0xGJx7-7n5Ta3UbIGKdxoNqrrhERMnFeliXoGNhe8RJ54oZiq18OWSf4lShl7PPcpcQr-Y-h2-2qxycMLRTr-rWNqkchRGYlD7LWjG-TTkmqbR_12yQc5xYYxWHYpq_F3Y/s4000/20230910_160943.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="364" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTiTOJStOdteWa7p4Mkx6-5XUexGrZCEYA2cj-krY5gRiZNYYUlBb68-_HZ0xGJx7-7n5Ta3UbIGKdxoNqrrhERMnFeliXoGNhe8RJ54oZiq18OWSf4lShl7PPcpcQr-Y-h2-2qxycMLRTr-rWNqkchRGYlD7LWjG-TTkmqbR_12yQc5xYYxWHYpq_F3Y/w485-h364/20230910_160943.jpg" width="485" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #9fc5e8;">With friends, colleagues and ex-colleagues at the end of the Treasure Quest 'wake' after the final show, at the Coach and Horses pub near the BBC in Norwich</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;">It’s been an emotional week for me, and for several of my
colleagues – some of them now, sadly, former colleagues, but still close
friends – as last Sunday <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0gdhpr3">we said goodbye to <i>Treasure Quest</i></a>, the BBC
Radio Norfolk programme which I have produced for the past 15 years, ever since
its regular run started in May 2008.</div><o:p> <br /></o:p>Or rather, which I <i>did</i> produce. It still feels
strange to refer to it in the past tense.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>It ran for 732 quests across 808 episodes – taking in 11
two-parters, five shows where the weather stopped us going out, and 60 ‘Virtual
Quests’ during the pandemic – and I was involved in all but about nine of them across
that time. <a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2018/03/ten-years-of-treasure-quest.html">I’ve written before on this blog about how much the show has meant to me</a>, and that’s been a big part of the wrench of it ending, of course. I’m very proud of so much that we were able to do after I wrote that piece, too: keeping it going through covid with the Virtual Quests which really seemed to mean so much to people; <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0bd50d7/p0bd4yk0">turning it into an on-air mystery game for a Boxing Day special</a>; having the new team of Sophie and Julie together for a final three years.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>But what’s also made <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0gcrdc7/p0gcr9pd">the final end</a> emotional, and moving, has been
seeing how much it means to other people. I knew it was a popular show which
had built up a community of listeners around it who really valued it and felt a
part of it, but seeing the hundreds of comments come in about what it means to
people and how much they’ll miss it has been quite humbling. It’s very sad to
think of that ‘community of the air’ now having been dispersed, forever.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p><a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-bbc-and-me.html">I wrote last year, for the BBC’s centenary</a>, about what a
privilege it has been for me to be a part of the BBC. And a large part of that feeling
has come from the opportunity to be a part of the team making a show which
really did mean something to people, and became a part of their lives – a very
rare and special honour. I think all of us lucky enough to have been in the ‘TQ
Family’ felt that way, all through the years. And we were very proud of everything that we did together.<br /><o:p> <br /><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PnBM1mHVY4Q?si=4mM0M1AqlhHt_ah1" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div></o:p><o:p> <br /></o:p>So it’s been a strange and sad week, and left me feeling
a little adrift – especially sitting here typing this at home on a Sunday
morning, when for over a third of my life so far I’d have usually been at work
producing <i>TQ</i>.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>But there have been some brighter spots, relating to the
continuing positive reaction I’ve had to <i>Pull to Open</i>. Two reviews of the
book appeared this week, both of them extremely pleasing. <a href="https://www.starburstmagazine.com/reviews/pull-to-open-1962-1963-the-inside-story-of-how-the-bbc-created-and-launched-doctor-who/">Paul Mount for <i>Starburst</i> says in his review</a> that “<b><i>Books about the history of British TV in general
and Doctor Who in particular don’t get much more essential than this
one.</i></b>” For <i>SFX</i> magazine, meanwhile, Nick Setchfield gives it
four-and-a-half stars out of five and says it “<b><i>succeeds in turning the
facts of a TV legend’s birth into a freshly engaging narrative</i>.</b>” Mount also
calls it a “<b><i>formidable work of long-form investigative journalism</i></b>”,
while Setchfield praises my “<b><i>cultural historian’s eye for context</i>.</b>”<br /><o:p> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8fBnAUYnOPIWlFZa5NaA6xftc11jQeSzkHHljyHKGgbJuAU0M2Rekj4LiEhxAUUZKzH4-bWNlniuqQyQWhRb17_SUJWUm4yl4YYuPRb3hafN5sRwUL32yaVI9NhgC0yxLVFRs3zrINk7kytl6v2ZpFbpuEI1JzV85ucFrzm9qr_plGjfSQl5mHEjL_4A/s449/2023-09-16%20-%200057%20-%20SFX%20pic.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="449" data-original-width="310" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8fBnAUYnOPIWlFZa5NaA6xftc11jQeSzkHHljyHKGgbJuAU0M2Rekj4LiEhxAUUZKzH4-bWNlniuqQyQWhRb17_SUJWUm4yl4YYuPRb3hafN5sRwUL32yaVI9NhgC0yxLVFRs3zrINk7kytl6v2ZpFbpuEI1JzV85ucFrzm9qr_plGjfSQl5mHEjL_4A/w276-h400/2023-09-16%20-%200057%20-%20SFX%20pic.jpg" width="276" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">So that has all been nicely ego-boosting!</div></o:p><o:p> <br /></o:p>As have the continuing images on Twitter of people
sharing their pictures of having received the book, and commenting on either their excitement
at looking forward to reading it or their positive thoughts after they have done
so. I was particularly flattered to see <a href="https://twitter.com/richardmarson2/status/1699729750502035684">the very kind tweet from Richard Marson</a>, whose own writing on British television history is widely
admired. He’s very much an expert in this area, so to see him refer to the book’s
“<b><i>great job of contextualising the birth of Doctor Who and navigating the
available sources to form a clear picture of the key events and characters</i></b>”
was very nice.<br /><o:p> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf1rw0C6nf2xFMUy7kDTXJbCWZ03ICBtGuASlrxWFJcjEKpXWD06HXfN3VH9IB9oJ1lNBai8f8i9EFA-WX0r3Bxh8H2u-tMhb4_Jcp_-mGXl8XWpmvTCF7jcOlTm_zZGyf_Xp87vW8w5Cc7fkZGzpcU8z7ri8CPcTycO-d8PhaDgfg6X0lIFbib0HyEjM/s3508/Montage%202.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2480" data-original-width="3508" height="349" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf1rw0C6nf2xFMUy7kDTXJbCWZ03ICBtGuASlrxWFJcjEKpXWD06HXfN3VH9IB9oJ1lNBai8f8i9EFA-WX0r3Bxh8H2u-tMhb4_Jcp_-mGXl8XWpmvTCF7jcOlTm_zZGyf_Xp87vW8w5Cc7fkZGzpcU8z7ri8CPcTycO-d8PhaDgfg6X0lIFbib0HyEjM/w493-h349/Montage%202.png" width="493" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">What happens next, I don’t know – on most scores, really.
My future at the BBC is still currently to be decided. In writing terms there
are a couple of little irons in the fire for pieces coming up related to <i>Pull
to Open</i>, about which more before too long hopefully. People have been
asking about and suggesting ideas for future non-fiction books, but there isn’t yet
any concept which really strikes me as one I’d like to get my teeth into. I do
have one idea for a non-<i>Doctor Who</i> non-fiction book, again related to
British television history, but I’m not sure whether it would really have
enough of a potential audience for anyone to want to publish it.</div></o:p><o:p> <br /></o:p>Finally, on a literary note, on Thursday evening I was at
the joint book launch in Norwich for the married authors Rachel Hore and DJ
Taylor, whose new novels <i>The Hidden Years</i> and <i>Flame Music</i> were both
released that day. I was quite pleased with the resulting radio piece, particularly
my idea of pitting them against each other in a sort of <i>Mr & Mrs</i>
game asking them questions about each other’s new books. This seemed to go down
quite well – have a listen to see how they did!<br /><o:p> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0gdrmf7" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="1213" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC2_HVavfGvJpJQ36Xfxgx6irZF2f_wyPWZT2c3bxmbGpOSDLmbYQ5T4xfQDwuqcxJssiv25RwuzFK2Bbz-4zv1Ywr5CohcLtBRfLxBRGd9j79L5Fpo6fZBFRDoIZ5o_TFwII5BHtflJAv7P1W0yQjqGnwR9Qq6bnZPenGRdTIsj0u24TMFljvh1hGAcc/w547-h308/Hore%20Taylor%20pic.jpg" width="547" /></a></div></o:p></div><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-82470450693218759022023-08-27T17:32:00.002+01:002023-08-27T17:32:20.190+01:00Open Out<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3OY3TbsKDDlz8YUCvpXoah3btye6H4gXK0JGpnewOAONk32VhQOU1Gbi8rG97SUN6bnxNlFluYzBwqG7RKxPQ9xkiKM6YZgLKT-jX24374EZBXkcA7uygKsjotz6BsIVlMu0cjSVOn4HP5zum4x4MbYJ-dzSYYw6SN-RJLlDkXrSPw96NrpfJUwv51Pw/s4000/20230825_121311.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3OY3TbsKDDlz8YUCvpXoah3btye6H4gXK0JGpnewOAONk32VhQOU1Gbi8rG97SUN6bnxNlFluYzBwqG7RKxPQ9xkiKM6YZgLKT-jX24374EZBXkcA7uygKsjotz6BsIVlMu0cjSVOn4HP5zum4x4MbYJ-dzSYYw6SN-RJLlDkXrSPw96NrpfJUwv51Pw/w400-h300/20230825_121311.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">It's here!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">After a little bit of a delay, my new book <i>Pull to Open</i> has finally been released! Copies have been arriving with people over the past week, and very excitingly on Friday I received a box with my copies inside. Not that I'm so massively egotistical as to want lots of copies of my own book hanging around the place - although I do want <i>some</i>, of course! - but there were various people to whom I'd promised copies.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlevELrIoCiAf1BCNM3vQyHWFiWu-2JZyC45W_aoQ0wkXiozDtIxpREb0dOogTWQ4PjIaVGFekRu5Kpe0iyI5yVr5hhxusaupLJzAX5-H3y4eXeyqFBhwqqvJE2tvMjetUSRWqAhd-RqOQM-DaStWIsw8DS7YbjVVtvcIsRSs20sg7BfixH0IL0OkkgS0/s3809/20230827_172829.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3809" data-original-width="2857" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlevELrIoCiAf1BCNM3vQyHWFiWu-2JZyC45W_aoQ0wkXiozDtIxpREb0dOogTWQ4PjIaVGFekRu5Kpe0iyI5yVr5hhxusaupLJzAX5-H3y4eXeyqFBhwqqvJE2tvMjetUSRWqAhd-RqOQM-DaStWIsw8DS7YbjVVtvcIsRSs20sg7BfixH0IL0OkkgS0/w300-h400/20230827_172829.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I am very proud of it - and the pleasing thing is, it seems to be going down very well so far with those who have read or are in the process of reading it. Earlier this month I recorded the first interview I'd done with someone about the book with someone who'd actually read it, which obviously was a nervous moment. But Steven Schapansky of the <i><a href="https://radiofreeskaro.com/">Radio Free Skaro</a></i> podcast was <i>extremely </i>complimentary, and was kind enough to record a very long chat with me for their most recent edition which was released last Sunday. If you'd like to have a listen to that, you can do so here:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" allowtransparency="true" data-name="pb-iframe-player" height="300" loading="lazy" scrolling="no" src="https://www.podbean.com/player-v2/?i=55ugk-1a5f26fa-dir&square=1&share=1&download=1&fonts=Arial&skin=1&font-color=auto&rtl=0&logo_link=episode_page&btn-skin=7&size=300" style="border: none; height: 300px; min-width: min(100%, 430px);" title="Radio Free Skaro #920 - The Canadian Mafia" width="100%"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">There's also been <a href="https://scifibulletin.com/doctor-who/reviews/review-doctor-who-books-pull-to-open/">a very kind review from the <i>Sci-Fi Bulletin</i> website</a> - 9 out of 10, I'll take that! And it was also flattering to see <i>Doctor Who Magazine</i> generate a nice amount of space to the book in their 'Gallifrey Guardian' news pages. This was the medium through which I first read about so much <i>Doctor Who</i> news and heard about so many new books and products when I was a child and a teenager, so it was very pleasing to see it featured there. I've also done interviews about the book <a href="https://cultbox.co.uk/news/pull-to-open-new-book-takes-a-fresh-look-at-doctor-whos-creation">for the CultBox website</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0-h4LizBAQ">for the <i>Who's Views</i> YouTube channel</a>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKspUXMntQ2RSL7MyWfQ4YVH_smkr3PIBAPe8KQeMdXAafVOuqtzItDzyl6d3EZtR6zTdJTlmFzRb_Eq2kNv_-HKaVroEk2YqDzHWab8a12esuT5hCTVAPVAWf03TGSyFwsNVvZ38rCpg2Zkkw-r4WhuMyxqhFGeO6i78xz7t5XixSEvQf0QJTTwB_7Lo/s2016/2023-07-19%20-%201237%20-%20DWM%20pic%20from%20Stuart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2016" data-original-width="1512" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKspUXMntQ2RSL7MyWfQ4YVH_smkr3PIBAPe8KQeMdXAafVOuqtzItDzyl6d3EZtR6zTdJTlmFzRb_Eq2kNv_-HKaVroEk2YqDzHWab8a12esuT5hCTVAPVAWf03TGSyFwsNVvZ38rCpg2Zkkw-r4WhuMyxqhFGeO6i78xz7t5XixSEvQf0QJTTwB_7Lo/w300-h400/2023-07-19%20-%201237%20-%20DWM%20pic%20from%20Stuart.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">As the book has been arriving with people in recent days, one of the things that's been nice has been seeing photos posted on social media as it's excitedly shared that they have it. Many of them also sharing the free Sydney Newman sticker, in the style of the 1972 Sugar Smacks stickers, which they get with it! Thanks to Paul Burley for creating that one. People being excited to receive a book that I have written is one hell of an ego boost, as I might imagine. I just hope these people are all as pleased by it once they've read it!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtJCXgqXwjo59eqaujbpIE0x3P6wYa_CjJ2c-K735Jp9JCMle77krmMQuChfgmvGMrQEUh7yexDcV80QhQsi87cxFBb9hQ39mtjGDcbS9Uek2D5WPODXLbpS-OVkeQU-LWRfzOiYJ5RYzCAhPyqlrsimTwovbCdS0vACW_AL-yefNlQLYUTqbTdv_P3lM/s3508/2023-08-27%20-%201700%20-%20collage.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2480" data-original-width="3508" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtJCXgqXwjo59eqaujbpIE0x3P6wYa_CjJ2c-K735Jp9JCMle77krmMQuChfgmvGMrQEUh7yexDcV80QhQsi87cxFBb9hQ39mtjGDcbS9Uek2D5WPODXLbpS-OVkeQU-LWRfzOiYJ5RYzCAhPyqlrsimTwovbCdS0vACW_AL-yefNlQLYUTqbTdv_P3lM/w400-h283/2023-08-27%20-%201700%20-%20collage.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">There've also been some very generous comments online, including very flatteringly from the esteemed <i>Doctor Who </i>historian, and general television historian, Andrew Pixley. One aspect I'm particularly pleased about is that people seem to be enjoying one of the main elements of the book, providing extra background and context about British television and the BBC of the time, to try and give more of an idea of the world into which <i>Doctor Who </i>emerged and why certain things happened. I knew that people like <i>me</i> would probably enjoy it - so it's nice to know that there <i>are</i> other people with tastes along those lines out there to justify that faith!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But anyway, yes - an extremely successful launch so far, I'd say. I really am very happy and very proud.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I should also add that before the book came out I was kindly interviewed by <a href="https://thedwshow.net/"><i>The Doctor Who Show </i>podcast</a> - another very enjoyable interview which if you wish to hear you can find below. The start of another '<a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-book-tour-that-didnt-tour.html">Podcast Book Tour</a>', perhaps? If any other podcast producers out there would like a chat, I'm more than happy to oblige!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" allowtransparency="true" data-name="pb-iframe-player" height="300" loading="lazy" scrolling="no" src="https://www.podbean.com/player-v2/?from=embed&i=79i9x-1440c9d-pb&square=1&share=1&download=1&fonts=Arial&skin=1&font-color=auto&rtl=0&logo_link=episode_page&btn-skin=3&size=300" style="border: none; height: 300px; min-width: min(100%, 430px);" title="INTERVIEW: Pull To Open: 1962–1963: The Inside Story of How the BBC Created and Launched Doctor Who" width="100%"></iframe></div>Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-81970053703854376752023-07-07T22:01:00.001+01:002023-07-09T08:58:04.670+01:00Another Passion<div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0fz22ms" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="964" data-original-width="1228" height="446" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiGSkrgUJujPGFLW2rbv808HAhFK6tdirHPhUEQ1vGupFP1EyQlEJkXHTgcZ3ggZvELASpGxnDKyedpxxiljzJbaAnqPMYv_OZD9hCRx_5Um5IezGZa0-fpmxLZMHLprb_g_I2amLk3PJSr7wUEHyuPfs1gjYTLS52zy72jIQ5BSXc_6qfdKfZsqCx21U/w568-h446/Williams%20-%20rail%20clip.jpg" width="568" /></a></div> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Anybody who's cast even the most casual of glances across the content of this blog would be left in no doubt that I am <a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/search/label/Doctor%20Who">a <i>Doctor Who</i> fan</a>. It's the enthusiasm of mine which gets written about the most here, which is no surprise because this is a blog about my writing and it so happens that <i>Doctor Who</i> is the subject about which I have found myself most often professionally engaged to write.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">(On the subject of which, by the way, thanks to <i>The Doctor Who Show</i> podcast for once again interviewing me, <a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-book-tour-that-didnt-tour.html">as they did for <i>The Long Game</i></a>, about <a href="https://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2023/06/pull-to-open.html">my new book</a>. You can <a href="https://thedwshow.net/2023/06/26/interview-pull-to-open-1962-1963-the-inside-story-of-how-the-bbc-created-and-launched-doctor-who/">hear the interview here</a> if you'd like to know more about the book).</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But there other things in life in which I am interested, of course. Not least among them is Formula One Grand Prix motor racing, of which I have been a dedicated armchair follower since I was 11 years old and happened across the 1995 Brazilian Grand Prix on television one Sunday afternoon. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's not that Formula One has never crossed my path professionally at all. Back in 2014 I was fortunate enough <a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-boy-from-brazil.html">to make a documentary about Ayrton Senna's early career in Norfolk</a> which gained some success, and last year I produced <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0dmhnvl">a documentary telling the story of George Russell's first year with the Mercedes team</a>. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">More recently, however, I have been helping to look after our weekly <i><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0cdv535">Racing Torque</a></i> motorsport show at work, and at the end of last month this resulted in an incredible opportunity to visit the Oxfordshire headquarters of the Williams Formula One team - one of the great names of the sport, and the team of which I became a fan when first starting to follow F1 in 1995.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This of course resulted in a report for <i>Racing Torque</i>, various other bits and pieces across the station - and, for the first and probably only time, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/66108994">a bylined piece by me on the BBC Sport website</a>. Yes, for this week only, I have been able to have a little bit of a play at being an F1 journalist!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/66108994" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="488" data-original-width="1068" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUsrQoRzTI3-2uVt--aoxE7tvP_CfwyYZivD1P06_YZ9z5kQWGTJqL0JtvqQKSUwIkmTWvW3v1oVNIRM8mc_yLJrQEKaEPTw9eUEed7ruqQrF84u11sAH4cC9BzfFvxRqch9Loyxzbr0DeX-uXAIMOXJbhbVck0ZLFbrv74p9AYxPsMKSOsjv-FzH4HIQ/w525-h240/Williams%20-%20byline.jpg" width="525" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Which is of course immensely pleasing, and another reminder of how very lucky I have been to have this job, and the amazing things I have been able to do through it.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Something else I have done this week which was equally, if not more, pleasing was <a href="https://soundcloud.com/paul-hayes-882952482/clapham-patching-ce-primary-150th-anniversary-radio-sussex-report">a piece for BBC Radio Sussex</a>, about my old primary school's 150th anniversary celebrations which I went to last Sunday. After 16 years in the BBC, it was nice to be able to finally do a piece for my "home" station - and in my home village, too, celebrating that school. And if I had been able to go back in time and tell <a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-day-i-left-school.html">the 11-year-old me who left that school in the summer of 1995</a> that in 28 years' time he would be writing professionally-published books about <i>Doctor Who</i> and getting to visit the Williams headquarters, on BBC duty for his <i>actual job</i>... Well, I can't help but think he would have felt things hadn't turned out <i>too</i> badly.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Mind you, he <i>would</i> probably have a go at me for not having had a novel published yet... But there's still time!</div>Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-86396230821826650452023-06-21T21:06:00.011+01:002023-06-21T21:12:48.647+01:00Pull to Open<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFWqpMRu8V1W5B4Zxaabo_pQMXzPZ_Suz6IgduI2LQrG254Jz6gwb_1kEHfvgxrRVnH3coapZeIOOh-9EmtTDvA0DzKP0565bJUeUsRubnDpgDQ_JKcMgLNBO2lwW-8-3bwUWTiVvEYHwHHuGp3-J92h846GQ-9SSGOldkssjrt4GFzrnkXbJSS3h5-08/s925/Pull%20to%20Open%20cover.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="925" data-original-width="603" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFWqpMRu8V1W5B4Zxaabo_pQMXzPZ_Suz6IgduI2LQrG254Jz6gwb_1kEHfvgxrRVnH3coapZeIOOh-9EmtTDvA0DzKP0565bJUeUsRubnDpgDQ_JKcMgLNBO2lwW-8-3bwUWTiVvEYHwHHuGp3-J92h846GQ-9SSGOldkssjrt4GFzrnkXbJSS3h5-08/w418-h640/Pull%20to%20Open%20cover.jpeg" width="418" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Yesterday evening was very exciting for me. After a long
time waiting for everything to be sorted and settled and ready and it to be
appropriate for it to be made public, my publishers (and it feels exciting
itself just to be able to say that!) Ten Acre <a href="https://tenacrefilms.bigcartel.com/product/pull-to-open-1962-1963">officially announced my new book</a>! It’s called <i>Pull to Open</i>, it tells the story of the creation of <i>Doctor
Who</i> in 1963, and it will be released on the 24<sup>th</sup> of July.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I wrote the book through 2022, and Stuart at Ten Acre was
gratifyingly very keen to take it when I sent it to him at the end of the year.
It’s taken a while having to wait for certain bits and pieces to fall into place
and doing some edits and other admin, but finally we’re almost there and the time
was right to announce.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>But why, some people may ask, go back to 1963 again? Why
go back to tell a story which has been told before? When even in the introduction
to <i><a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Long%20Game">The Long Game</a></i> I mentioned how although the creation of <i>Doctor Who</i>
was a story which had long fascinated me, it was one which had already been
well-told by others.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>So why have my go at telling it now?<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Well, I gradually came to realise that although that was
true, it had never been told in <i>quite</i> the way I fancied telling it.<br /> <o:p> <br /><div style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoWTCicB_zgjMONnKuR_CDVrVZrW68lNdbt7I4QbVWoXlnE9Im8brqfN4uKuXKTtsi0lzTJDQaXoytCpWzTB7cPtWwweeAluWRZCqJ2waC7Lz0ScJzUajg3B1nT8r7HzZGL2ugvn9az5kgev6PH0_jUMy2f3I0J6K_51krlEiNP8GOFy-XwSIsDmjKsas/s5984/The%20Sixties.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="5984" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoWTCicB_zgjMONnKuR_CDVrVZrW68lNdbt7I4QbVWoXlnE9Im8brqfN4uKuXKTtsi0lzTJDQaXoytCpWzTB7cPtWwweeAluWRZCqJ2waC7Lz0ScJzUajg3B1nT8r7HzZGL2ugvn9az5kgev6PH0_jUMy2f3I0J6K_51krlEiNP8GOFy-XwSIsDmjKsas/w400-h268/The%20Sixties.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #9fc5e8;">Doctor Who: The Sixties, a Christmas present I received in 1993 which helped start me off on this journey.</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><span><div style="text-align: left;">After <i>The Long Game</i> had come out in the autumn of 2021,
it became clear that I <i>could</i>, in fact, write something other people would
want to read, and I <i>had</i> done a pretty good job of it. Lots of people
bought it. Lots of people said very nice things about it. At the very end of
the year, in one of the interviews I did to promote the book, <a href="https://ajblackwriter.co.uk/2021/12/30/book-review-author-interview-the-long-game-paul-hayes/">with AJ Black for his website</a>, he asked me if I had any other books lined up.</div></span></div><span><o:p> <br /></o:p>“I can’t imagine ever writing another non-fiction book,
either <em>Doctor Who</em> or otherwise,” I
told him. “But you never know! If I am struck by a good idea for one I might
give it a go. Certainly in<em><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span></em><em>Doctor Who</em> terms, I think
pretty much anything else I might want to write about has already been very
well researched and written about by other people. Whereas with <em>The Long Game</em> I knew I had
something new and a bit different which hadn’t formed the basis of a book
before. If I ever think of something else like that, I might have another try!”<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>And that kept nagging at me, once the interview came out.
It felt like a waste, somehow. All that good will I had built up with <i>The
Long Game</i>, there had to be some way I could channel it into something else.
Frankly, I knew that if I put my efforts in 2022 into t</span>rying to write fiction
there was very little chance of it being published. If I put them into writing
a non-fiction work, specifically a television history of particularly <i>Doctor
Who</i> one, I knew that it would be at least seriously considered and probably
had a very <i>good</i> chance of being published.</o:p></div><o:p> <br /></o:p>But what could it be…?<br /><o:p> <br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmxreZMdQyRqY6jga9XdCBga98O2t1PXf62HMo8yTV9A1TwpOC-aVKWlUzGjzc5AFjgKgJ8diClx9IaNGJwLzCm1ddcpzhTSURyTIGrMnwSmDbrQKSs3cFBWgVadbKvC_6AF-9NkxqrNYIUwy28kP0C9nDmdkp_bYHi-6qTXIHq02HCccGXhJnOK8Ezkg/s2068/TARDIS%20books.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2068" data-original-width="1376" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmxreZMdQyRqY6jga9XdCBga98O2t1PXf62HMo8yTV9A1TwpOC-aVKWlUzGjzc5AFjgKgJ8diClx9IaNGJwLzCm1ddcpzhTSURyTIGrMnwSmDbrQKSs3cFBWgVadbKvC_6AF-9NkxqrNYIUwy28kP0C9nDmdkp_bYHi-6qTXIHq02HCccGXhJnOK8Ezkg/w426-h640/TARDIS%20books.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-weight: 700;"></span></div></o:p><a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2012/09/my-novels-1963.html">I’ve written before on this blog</a> about how the creation
of <i>Doctor Who</i> in 1963 has cast a kind of spell over me. I think many of
us have particular little slivers of history, little eras, which form a kind of
bubble of interest. Where a particular combination of the people and the circumstances
and the background and the culture and the society all get a hook into our
consciousness somehow.<br /> <o:p> <br /></o:p>BBC Television in 1963 is very much that for me. It’s
why, nearly 20 years ago now, <a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2012/11/1963-anniversary-excerpt.html">I had a go at writing the story of the creation
of <i>Doctor Who</i> as a novel</a>. That was no good, of course, and it would be
no good trying that again. So what else could I do with that interest?<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>I did have one ‘way in’, as it were. In 2021, <a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2021/06/donald-wilson-said.html">I’d written
a piece for <i>Doctor Who Magazine</i> about the co-creator of the programme,
Donald Wilson</a>. This was something I’d first researched way back in 2015,
and it was originally a much longer article, but eventually by the time it
reached print there was only space for a shorter piece. But I still had
all of that writing and research. I knew I had a ready-made chapter on Wilson’s
life.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>But a chapter of what…?<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Once again, it came back to that nagging feeling. Another
book. A <i>Doctor Who</i> book. And finally, the realisation that I could
tackle the very start of the show in a way which I didn’t think had been done
before.<br /> <o:p> <br /></o:p>Firstly, with this book, the creation would <i>be</i> the
story. Those books I’d loved so much in my childhood and my teens, like <i>Doctor
Who: The Sixties</i> or <i>The Handbook: The First Doctor</i>, had begun the
story and then carried on to tell the tale of a whole era. This book would only
go up to the end of 1963 – the point at which <i>Doctor Who</i> was about to go
nuclear, so to speak, as the Daleks rolled onto Britain’s screens for the first
time. Poised with a happy ending, just as <i>The Long Game</i> was with its
finale of the return of the show being announced in September 2003. A perfect,
ready-made narrative structure.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJUoBGN5KsbCOAWF5aFE9yC-Sjng3984JBuOrQaFTlQv-dCnRMWD1dGljmYLujG6LYh4gnp5kie0ADGnWfUay1XYBhQ2mk2_nD9TPMC1k1opFVeG3ViIvaSa7zk0bdNbfBb3uyv-DvWJ_prMqL8O5yllqO6Z6jpFBbKIMdCSrm1ylTu6xcyTcZIfABh5s/s4000/20220810_123558.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJUoBGN5KsbCOAWF5aFE9yC-Sjng3984JBuOrQaFTlQv-dCnRMWD1dGljmYLujG6LYh4gnp5kie0ADGnWfUay1XYBhQ2mk2_nD9TPMC1k1opFVeG3ViIvaSa7zk0bdNbfBb3uyv-DvWJ_prMqL8O5yllqO6Z6jpFBbKIMdCSrm1ylTu6xcyTcZIfABh5s/w480-h640/20220810_123558.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-weight: 700;"></span></div>But secondly, I knew from the kind comments I’d had that
one of the things people had really enjoyed about <i>The Long Game</i> was the
way in which it provided the wider background and context of what was going on
in the BBC at the time. Who these people were who had taken these decisions,
and how they’d come to be in those jobs at that time. Not just <i>what</i> had
happened and when, but <i>why</i> it had happened. How the BBC and the wider
British television industry was working at that point in history.<br /><o:p> </o:p><o:p> <br /></o:p></div><div style="text-align: left;">I knew that if I could bring all of that, and combine it
with the strong narrative thread of the events slowly coalescing for <i>Doctor
Who</i> to rise into existence, I could write a really strong book. With 2023
being the show’s 60<sup>th</sup> anniversary year, it seemed perfect. So, hopefully,
that’s what I’ve done. On the 16<sup>th</sup> of January 2022, I sat down at my
laptop and typed the opening words: “When did <i>Doctor Who</i> begin?” There’s
been a lot of writing, research and effort since then, but now, 130,000 words
later, I have a book.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Among all the many, many lovely comments I’ve had since <i>Pull
to Open</i> was announced by Ten Acre yesterday evening, one of the ones by
which I was most touched was from a user called DeeDeeTee on the <a href="https://gallifreybase.com/">GallifreyBase <i>Doctor
Who</i> forum</a>. They wrote that: “<i>The Long Game</i> was an incredible read.
Paul's skill is managing to tell the history of the BBC through the history of
the show. I'm really looking forward to seeing how he weaves this magic in
telling the story about the very beginning...”</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It’s a wonderful feeling to find that someone you don’t know at all has read something you have written and understood <i>exactly</i> what you were trying to do with it. Trying to explore and explain part of the deep, rich and complex history of the BBC through the narrative of how that history influenced the development of <i>Doctor Who</i>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Whether or not I have succeeded… Well, time will tell. We’ll
see what people make of it next month.</div><p></p>Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-472331148642746732023-03-27T18:06:00.004+01:002023-03-27T18:09:02.437+01:00Running the Show<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdTerzA7NQqhBqGrdl51GggRX6OcILjdw9MguIy0V25NCbJJuNY7cnrxZ7VZKd-YXFFM3qyuOEHcFmAG9LU4A2hpB9f1wttmUbbHLrNN1sN_7JfUmVP2qX1nBg_rwdMAgxIn-clnsFaV0Fp2iKXMFIgOXH1IPE2X9bq8kAWzn77MuRNLrX7BoW9oey/s1024/DWM%20showrunners.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="724" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdTerzA7NQqhBqGrdl51GggRX6OcILjdw9MguIy0V25NCbJJuNY7cnrxZ7VZKd-YXFFM3qyuOEHcFmAG9LU4A2hpB9f1wttmUbbHLrNN1sN_7JfUmVP2qX1nBg_rwdMAgxIn-clnsFaV0Fp2iKXMFIgOXH1IPE2X9bq8kAWzn77MuRNLrX7BoW9oey/w452-h640/DWM%20showrunners.jpg" width="452" /></a></div><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Doctor Who Magazine</i> released a new special edition earlier this month, focusing on the producers / showrunners from across the history of the programme from 1963 to the present day. I'm pleased to say that earlier this year I was asked to contribute a couple of pieces to this, and they've now appeared in the finished version as my first professional writing efforts of 2023.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I was asked to write the pieces focusing on <i>Doctor Who</i>'s one-off 1990s return in the form of the 1996 TV Movie and its producer Philip Segal. I was glad to be able to do this as the TV Movie is a production for which I have an enormous amount of affection. Even though it ended up of course with the disappointment of not leading to any new series, as a 12-year-old I found it <i>incredibly</i> exciting - to actually have new <i>Doctor Who</i>! The show had been off-air as a going concern since I was five years old, a lifetime at that age, and even though the <i>Doctor Who</i> videos I bought with my paper round money were mostly all new to me, I knew that I wasn't quite the same. This was different. This was <i>properly</i> new. <i>Doctor Who</i> was back!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">As I say, it sadly wasn't to last, and we had to wait nearly ten years for the proper return. But the fact that it did eventually come back makes it all the more possible to look affectionately on the TV Movie, so I was pleased to be able to write about Segal and also to interview the movie's writer, Matthew Jacobs, who very kindly spared me some time to chat via Zoom from LA.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimQ3JRyfYlFtQ6HfG_k9Q6i1jW-P-FyrqJT1Ixlo8nNS1hYTO-HXIQN7Q4WqV_UfIfC0YlbM4c7IKFfWNu1_UwLlR9n3S1G13vQD2T5H05E30d397RquDSDSQtHAXtYG89YscbylKT_2bwnCklufvpa0GBmazysyXnyjFt7LRFLF4bx2MHSkYFcYVG/s1709/Proper%20book.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1709" data-original-width="1282" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimQ3JRyfYlFtQ6HfG_k9Q6i1jW-P-FyrqJT1Ixlo8nNS1hYTO-HXIQN7Q4WqV_UfIfC0YlbM4c7IKFfWNu1_UwLlR9n3S1G13vQD2T5H05E30d397RquDSDSQtHAXtYG89YscbylKT_2bwnCklufvpa0GBmazysyXnyjFt7LRFLF4bx2MHSkYFcYVG/w300-h400/Proper%20book.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">That's not the only exciting thing about this latest <i>DWM</i> special for me, though. In one of the pieces after mine, Eddie Robson writes about Russell T Davies... and refers to <i><a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2021/10/congratulations-its-book.html">The Long Game</a></i>, as if it's a proper book by a proper writer! I found this enormously flattering and, of course, quite the ego boost!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I'm also rather pleased to have contributed to <i>DWM</i> again for the first time under the new version of the old 'diamond' logo, which it recently adopted. This pleased me purely for nostalgic reasons - the magazine was using the older version of that logo <a href="https://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2015/01/a-good-start-to-year.html">when I first became a reader of it in the mid 1990s</a>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The <i>Doctor Who Magazine </i>'Showrunner' special is out now from Panini, available at WH Smith's <a href="https://doctorwhomagazine.com/specials/doctor-who-magazine-special-showrunners/">or online</a>.</div>Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-54378143204506646242022-12-31T16:37:00.006+00:002023-12-31T17:55:58.093+00:00Old Year's Night<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKgKrYMvNw38fNfS0cdbaBEsRLe3BwvcK5A6fcW0S522yopFJrcyfIsMRewAtzg6p30pJC5nGzfyxV_y88-mH0mS0WkaL4BTedPnMzGzucgMFVbNDDk9Hjdj_hIlqv8W-jPGv0Vi6qX2duMVQm1QS-ZPTuXumEQPscyqOrzpSoAxoDIKXOAm8nN5uz/s4000/20221231_161652.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKgKrYMvNw38fNfS0cdbaBEsRLe3BwvcK5A6fcW0S522yopFJrcyfIsMRewAtzg6p30pJC5nGzfyxV_y88-mH0mS0WkaL4BTedPnMzGzucgMFVbNDDk9Hjdj_hIlqv8W-jPGv0Vi6qX2duMVQm1QS-ZPTuXumEQPscyqOrzpSoAxoDIKXOAm8nN5uz/w400-h300/20221231_161652.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>A front page mention for my Boxing Day piece in the EDP</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div style="text-align: left;">It's that time of year again - time to look back over what I have achieved over the past twelve months, and to wonder what the next year might have in store.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">I fear I must report that, <a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2021/12/at-gate-of-year.html">as with last year</a>, not only am I no closer to achieving my dream of having a novel professionally published, I basically made no effort <i>at all</i> to achieve anything in that direction throughout 2022. I barely wrote any fiction at all - just a few fragments here and there for projects which will almost certainly never see the light of day.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">However, I do have some excuse. Back in January, I set myself some targets for the year. Having decided after the success of <i><a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Long%20Game">The Long Game</a></i> that, for the time being at least, it was far more worthwhile to put my efforts into non-fiction than fiction, I decided to have a go at writing another factual book. This I now have a draft of, it seems to have gone reasonably well, and fingers crossed it looks as if it may appear sometime in 2023 - more on that as and when.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So one target was to write a draft of a new non-fiction book, and I have achieved that. The other was related to my day job - I wanted to make two more radio documentaries. I had in mind from very early on what I wanted them to be, too. One <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0ct6lkt">about Banksy's "Spraycation" in the summer of 2021</a>, to go out around the first anniversary of it happening and using bits of our live programming from the time to tell the story of what happened. The other was <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0d8bykz">a local documentary for the BBC's centenary celebrations</a>, and I managed to achieve both of these. In fact, I ended up not only making these two, but four documentaries altogether this year - also <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0d09dgw">doing one the week the Queen died</a> with some local remembrances and archive, and one for this Christmas <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0dmhnvl">looking back at local Formula One driver George Russell's first year with the Mercedes team</a>. We even got to speak to George for this, which as a big armchair Formula One fan I enjoyed putting together.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmaHzMGroS28UHpwGS8PrWlAmg-JTMoC5ZYubNx_cuAg6gwUgTgrN4oQGYjeBkS7rSUXPszhaiu_kfY6Z2L_0Qnftipv-4h-wz_PviSrzs9GsoaaKei-ObL5dNFvdi0aQ9jnCRRhZJL7i9R5Ug8p72bR4fy3PxQHrFinM-U6siQxCxrn4OYzgngP5z/s3776/20221231_161721.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2352" data-original-width="3776" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmaHzMGroS28UHpwGS8PrWlAmg-JTMoC5ZYubNx_cuAg6gwUgTgrN4oQGYjeBkS7rSUXPszhaiu_kfY6Z2L_0Qnftipv-4h-wz_PviSrzs9GsoaaKei-ObL5dNFvdi0aQ9jnCRRhZJL7i9R5Ug8p72bR4fy3PxQHrFinM-U6siQxCxrn4OYzgngP5z/w400-h249/20221231_161721.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I think, then, that I can look back on the year with some satisfaction. I was also able to carry on writing some other bits and bobs. I was flattered to be asked to make <a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/search/label/Doctor%20Who">some more contributions to <i>Doctor Who Magazine</i></a>, and the <i>Eastern Daily Press</i> <a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2022/01/paper-talk.html">printed</a> <a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-bbc-and-me.html">some more features</a> of mine tied-in with some of our radio programmes. I even managed to squeeze another one of the latter in before the end of the year, with a Boxing Day piece about our <i>Treasure Quest</i> special.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This time last year I wrote that there was some exciting news coming up radio-wise, which was that in January my 2021 Nexus documentary <a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2022/01/extra-extra.html">got a national airing on 4 Extra</a>, which was immensely pleasing - especially it getting good write-ups in <i>The Times</i> and the <i>Radio Times</i>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So all of that was good, and once again I look back on a year when I have been very fortunate and can be satisfied that I was able to use whatever writing skills I have in a professional capacity. And yet...</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I still have to face up to the fact that I am basically middle-aged now, and still after all these years of ambition I have never been able to earn any money at all from writing any fiction. You'd think I'd be able to get a little <i>something</i> in <i>somewhere</i>, but no. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I just have to try harder, I suppose. I'm not sure what avenue I could pursue to try and achieve that during 2023, but getting back to fiction more generally will have to be on the list. After all, you can't become a novelist if you're not at least trying to write novels...</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Happy New Year, everybody!</div>Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-14358811653814525452022-11-14T13:02:00.004+00:002022-11-14T13:02:49.247+00:00The BBC and Me<p>Today marks the 100<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the BBC first
going on the air. Exactly a century since Arthur Burrows read that same opening
news bulletin twice in a row, once normally and then more slowly, so that listeners
could write in and say which they preferred.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0d8bykz"><img border="0" data-original-height="604" data-original-width="800" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg5yk2_pD_f0jZzTKYFxClcF9wW2CujVK098yS-28pmW9FgN2CIsEL3S7XiwXfA_OcPnD5yFhUZ_B0_cNnL4O2B1Ozj9iT5N8ijQkQgCbpN6c9JysvwvLCmmpHPiDbhV_y3Nyzingk-HoRf9tLbl83AmvZnIOy04Q3JSj4851LX1yhQuaKGJ-ilGjY/w400-h303/2022-11-13%20-%202134%20-%20Auntie%20in%20Norfolk%20programme%20page.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0d8bykz"><span style="color: white;">I had a BBC 100 programme on yesterday, but this is a more personal piece</span></a></i></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Like everybody who has grown up in the United Kingdom in
the hundred years since then, I cannot tell you when I first became ‘aware’ of
the BBC. It has simply always been there – a part of the fabric of life in this
country. Love it, hate it, be indifferent or ignore it, you always know it’s <i>there</i>.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p>I</o:p> did love it, and from a very early age. As a young
child I was an avid viewer of the Broom Cupboard days of Children’s BBC in the
late 1980s and early 90s, and can remember having the absolute conviction that
the BBC were the ‘good guys’ and ITV were ‘the enemy’. Where this came from, I
don’t know. I’ve heard people talk down the years about households where children
weren’t allowed to watch ITV because their parents for some reason or other
disapproved of it. Whether that ever actually happened or not I don’t know, but
our family certainly wasn’t like that. My mum was in many respects the model
ITV viewer. But for whatever reason, I got it into my head as a child that I
was on the BBC’s ‘side’.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">Of course, <i>Doctor Who</i> may have had a lot to do with
it. The BBC made <i>Doctor Who</i>, and so they had to be the ones on the side
of the angels, right? That was certainly a reason why I became
fascinated about how the BBC worked, and its history. <i>Doctor Who</i> is one
of the most closely-studied and heavily written-about programmes ever shown on
British television, and it was through reading books about the series and its
history when I was growing up that I developed a deep interest in the BBC and the history of broadcasting in this country more generally.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">I don’t think, though, that it ever entered into my head
that I might one day be able to work for the BBC. It just wasn’t something that
I ever thought about. I don’t know if I had a notion of what ‘type’ of person
worked for the BBC, as such, but it never occurred to me as something I could try
to get into. It seemed such a far-off distant thing, plus of course much of
what I read about and found interesting about the BBC was in the past. The notion
that the BBC might be a part of my future was too incredible to contemplate.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">It was only after leaving university and being confronted
with the reality that I now had to work out what to do with my myself that the BBC
became a part of my life. While doing a very morale-sapping, boring day job four
days a week I started volunteering at the BBC in Norwich on the other day in
the summer of 2006. This meant that I was given an ID pass to get into the
building – and when I was given it, I could <i>not</i> stop looking at it. Holding
it in my hands and staring at it. I took photos of it, in case this didn’t last
very long and they wanted it back, so that I could have some memento, some
proof I’d once had it. That I had been a part of the BBC.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing">The BBC! Me!</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">I have proudly worn that pass into the building every
time I have gone in there for the past 16 years. It’s a bit battered and marked
now, and the photo resembles me less and less every year. But if I hold it in
my hands and look at it, that logo there with my name, I still feel that same pride
and disbelief. That I could have become a tiny part of this great organisation
which I have loved since I was a child. That I work for the same BBC as all
those people I have watched, listened to, looked up to and admired.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">I had that same feeling of amazed excitement when I
started getting paid shifts the following year, and then in early 2008 an incredible
offer. There was a job they needed filling, full-time, for three months as
someone had left and they weren’t sure what was going to happen to that
particular role. They couldn’t guarantee it would last any longer than that,
but would I come and do it…?</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">It did not seem a risk to me. Of <i>course</i> I said
yes. The chance to say that I worked, even for just a few months, full-time for
the BBC was irresistible. I was really, properly there. Even if this turned out
to be the only exciting thing that ever happened in the rest of my life, it would
be something to treasure and hold on to. That I worked for the BBC.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">That three months has not, yet, come to an end.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyDVXhU7GovcX299f7gAicQuwUiWEZKPKtiCGoGjzFDmVNBBc7nyEDKqhK6JELcIwpwD1atjtlzyp7o5TJOpgpEgD9bxJsMuRkYq5fubuqsqg5qHrpWyNuvHsZk0Hn7bpH9N4whG1UghCBuvbN-xm6QvOOVGEZUgRGzZsrOtfXvSxl578MKWGZKHS6/s2048/BBC%20100%20Article.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyDVXhU7GovcX299f7gAicQuwUiWEZKPKtiCGoGjzFDmVNBBc7nyEDKqhK6JELcIwpwD1atjtlzyp7o5TJOpgpEgD9bxJsMuRkYq5fubuqsqg5qHrpWyNuvHsZk0Hn7bpH9N4whG1UghCBuvbN-xm6QvOOVGEZUgRGzZsrOtfXvSxl578MKWGZKHS6/w400-h300/BBC%20100%20Article.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: white;">The Eastern Daily Press kindly published a BBC 100 piece by me on Saturday, although sadly under the byline "Paul Haynes"!</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNoSpacing">For nearly 15 years now I have been in the incredibly
privileged position, which I appreciate and value as being very rare in life,
of not having to wake up in the morning and think, “Oh Christ, I’ve got to go
to work today.” To be spared that crushing, soul-destroying heaviness of having
to go and do a morale-sapping job I hate. Like any job, of course, life at the
BBC has its occasional frustrations and annoyances. But never anything that
lasts. Never anything that has ever made me not want to go back in.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">I do understand how <i>incredibly</i> fortunate I am in
that, and what a rare privilege it is – especially when it’s on the public
payroll. There is always that dichotomy in the BBC, or perhaps any form of
broadcasting, between doing something that <i>you</i> enjoy and doing something
for the benefit of the audience – but especially so in the BBC when the
audience are the ones directly paying for it. However, I like to think that I
have always managed to resist ever becoming <i>too</i> self-indulgent, and that
my instincts are not too far out of whack with what the listeners wanted in the
role that I was in.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">You can never please all of the people all of the time,
of course, but I have been lucky enough to have been involved with some amazing
programmes during my time with the BBC. <a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2018/03/ten-years-of-treasure-quest.html">I have written before on here</a> about how
special it has been to be involved with <i>Treasure Quest</i>, the Sunday
morning show I have produced since just after I started working full-time at
the BBC in Norwich. It’s an <i>amazing</i> thing to have been a part of – an
out-and-out entertainment show, yes, but a very BBC one.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">It may be primarily about having fun and playing the
game, but every week through that format we publicise local events, charities
and good causes. We’ve raised tens of thousands of pounds for Children in Need
down the years, brought people together and cheered up their Sunday mornings.
But also, of course – wow! I’ve been able to put together a programme which has
messed about with putting presenters on trains, buses, and helicopters! Put
them on-stage singing and dancing, through assault courses, up tall towers, and
set them up being pulled over by the police or locked in guard cells by the
army. We’ve <a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2012/07/treasure-quest-book.html">put out books</a>, CDs and calendars, and mounted our own stage shows;
and we have a fanbase, a small but fervent one. It’s a producer-proof show,
really – such a good idea that it only needed someone half-competent to steer
it, and of course the reason the audience love it is because of the presenters.
But I like to think I have put a lot into it and wrung everything out of it
that I could have done, and put those presenters into situations which gave
them the opportunity to really engage the audience in the way that they have.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">So if I’d done nothing else in the BBC I could be
incredibly proud of <i>Treasure Quest</i>. But it’s been so much more – all the
features, items and documentaries I’ve had the opportunity to make. The
hundreds, thousands of live programmes I’ve had the chance to produce. The
difference we’ve been able to make to real lives in real ways, whether working
into the night as the flood waters rose or helping someone work out how they
were going to get food when they couldn’t leave the house in the early days of
lockdown.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">None of this is done alone, and although I am at heart a
highly individualistic – even self-centred – person, some of the very finest
moments at the BBC are when we come together to work as a team. On those flood
nights or election nights or those big, set-piece <i>Treasure Quest</i> shows. During
lockdown. Or even when it’s just the two of you, you and a presenter, getting
the breaking items on the air or seeing the calls roll in because you’ve
entertained and engaged people.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">I’ve had the chance to present shows to a large chunk of
England and to make programmes at the home of the BBC itself, Broadcasting
House in London. I’ve produced podcasts downloaded by thousands of people all
over the world and helped write articles which have been read by over a million.
I have had the opportunity to do all of these incredible things because I am a
part of the BBC, and the presence of those three little letters is what makes
it magic. I am sure I could probably have had fun and enjoyed myself and done
creative things if I had worked in commercial radio. But it would not have been
the same. I am not saying this is some universal truth, or that everyone ought
to feel this way – this is specific to me. It’s being part of the BBC which
makes it <i>special</i>. Which gives a pride I don’t think I’d feel if I were working
for any other organisation.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">I was even once, <a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2021/09/into-nexus.html">just for five minutes in August 2021</a>,
responsible for the output of that very same station which Arthur Burrows
opened back in 1922. Which had gone from being 2LO to the London station of the
Regional Programme to the Home Service and eventually BBC Radio 4. I became a
part of that when I made a piece for the <i>Today</i> programme. I was a link
in that national chain which stretches back for a century.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">I do not know whether the BBC will be around for another
century. I do not even know what the future might hold for it in the rest of
this decade. What form it should take and how it ought to be funded are not
arguments which I can or should be a part of. If it were up to me, of course, I
would like everything to stay the same, simply because that’s the nature of my
personality. But I am grown-up enough these days to recognise that that’s
neither possible nor desirable, in any area of life. Everything changes, and
has to change.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">The future of the BBC will be decided by those whom it
serves. There has for a long time been a broad consensus in favour of it, and if
we are still wanted and needed then hopefully that consensus can continue. But
whether it can or it should is for others to decide.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">If it all came to an end tomorrow, I would be <i>devastated</i>.
I know that I would never again be lucky enough in life to find myself not just
in a job that I enjoyed, but in a job that I was <i>proud</i> to do. The
special part of my life would be over. But everything has its time, and
everything ends, and the best parts of all our lives are finite.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">I would still, though, have that feeling I had when I was
asked to come and work for the BBC full-time back in 2008, when it might have
been just for a few months. That it was worth it – <i>so</i> worth it. When the
time comes, I will be able to look back and say that “I worked for the BBC.”
That I achieved something in life, that I had a job which really <i>meant</i>
something – to me, at any rate, which is all we can ask of in our work.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">“The BBC,” someone once said, “will never love you back.”
But I have never needed it to. I have given a lot to the BBC, but I have always
felt that I have got so much more back than I have given. Both as a viewer and
listener long before I ever worked there, and in the friendships that I have
made there, the things I have done and the opportunity I have had to be
creative every single day – and to be part of something greater than anything
else someone like me could ever have been involved with otherwise.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">Happy birthday, BBC. Thank you for everything.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-56985351231866877132022-10-18T18:44:00.004+01:002022-10-18T18:52:12.809+01:00Tales of the Century<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh4nXqlYy8P3IM2zTpTszRcEsrVAojBc_uOzfVNxHBi-PF9ZAEA0UTASMnDMOFLOT5cyF3WiXTKeyO_zbnaeRRU8tPQR-PWAwCob-t1PxDt3wS5WJcowMRWKw_-FpeNsAvXZXOvPUDRGqZiok1we53MfC0dW4abSDCpYr-t2ZJtsfDvAGSmMq_LHYN/s2254/DWM%20A%20BBC%20Production.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2254" data-original-width="1650" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh4nXqlYy8P3IM2zTpTszRcEsrVAojBc_uOzfVNxHBi-PF9ZAEA0UTASMnDMOFLOT5cyF3WiXTKeyO_zbnaeRRU8tPQR-PWAwCob-t1PxDt3wS5WJcowMRWKw_-FpeNsAvXZXOvPUDRGqZiok1we53MfC0dW4abSDCpYr-t2ZJtsfDvAGSmMq_LHYN/w469-h640/DWM%20A%20BBC%20Production.jpg" width="469" /></a></p><p></p><p>Today marks the start of the centenary celebrations of the BBC - an organisation for which I am very proud to be able to say that I have the privilege and the good fortune to work.</p><p>It's exactly 100 years since the BBC was founded, although the proper on-air anniversary of the first BBC broadcast is not until next month - November 14th, to be precise. I'm working on a programme in my day job marking the centenary in our own little corner of the country, but today is a good excuse to be able to say that I've also been able to play a very small part in another aspect of the centenary celebrations.</p><p>The BBC have produced a special episode of <i>Doctor Who</i> for the anniversary, which is being broadcast this coming Sunday, the 23rd. To tie-in with this, the latest edition of <i>Doctor Who Magazine</i> comes with a special supplementary magazine called <i>Doctor Who: A BBC Production</i>, telling the story of the BBC's history during <i>Doctor Who</i>'s time in production and the background and context of the influence of the wider changes at the Corporation on how the series was made.</p><p>I was very fortunate to be asked to write a piece for this, looking at the BBC in 2000s. The magazine is available now from WH Smith's, supermarkets, and of course <a href="https://www.panini.co.uk/shp_gbr_en/magazines-comics-books/doctor-who/magazines-and-comics.html">online from the publishers Panini</a>.</p><p></p><p></p>Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-52789346764821924342022-08-31T18:32:00.008+01:002022-09-07T10:06:09.328+01:00Guest Stars<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh22iKMLoVBWBc0lKYjijuHWhHUST4wZQ5O192p83LQQ9rwzZfKV2zSOkDAKogp73BgaNJPYFktMJ12mJa_xJQCAiTs1ZY2DgO1MDA20PwxxcwPe1mF2kLkHkutAr4fvyPVfSgikrS91Da4sH8zRvkDDvuvqOSPyiOtb0e5QSCI__sl2XQZt6LZcvbk/s1200/DWM%20Guest%20Stars%20cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="848" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh22iKMLoVBWBc0lKYjijuHWhHUST4wZQ5O192p83LQQ9rwzZfKV2zSOkDAKogp73BgaNJPYFktMJ12mJa_xJQCAiTs1ZY2DgO1MDA20PwxxcwPe1mF2kLkHkutAr4fvyPVfSgikrS91Da4sH8zRvkDDvuvqOSPyiOtb0e5QSCI__sl2XQZt6LZcvbk/w453-h640/DWM%20Guest%20Stars%20cover.jpg" width="453" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"></p><p>I imagine any reader of this blog, if there are any such people - and hello to you if you're out there and indeed reading this! - must be tiring of me chronicling my <i>Doctor Who Magazine</i> contributions here. But sod it - this blog is for me really, I doubt anyone is reading, and it's still a pleasant and flattering novelty to be paid for professional writing work!</p><p>So just a quick note to point out that I have some pieces in the latest <i>Doctor Who Magazine</i> special edition, which was published earlier this month. This particular special highlights some of the guest stars who have appeared in the programme down the decades - 100 of them, in fact. 10 of them received feature profiles in the publication, and I was asked to write five of these.</p><p>One of the five was on Kylie Minogue, who graces the front cover - meaning that I can, for the first time, claim to have written a <i>DWM</i> cover feature!</p>Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-48931219598412843522022-07-28T21:08:00.005+01:002022-07-28T21:08:40.588+01:00The Spare Part People<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA0OD4pooHdG9-rVl3B4lnyR3OwHeSFlrSz5A52hvvSVSKoiUacgtzd0xFzJ4QhQxsPZniOkd6rTkUA2htachFKQPqYbXv86Ts7hvZVAa1HwpCN6AwVaa7Xf271ULMzqjujxI_MGNFcARR5X1t3AGRMcCldw9Z_iqZ4Nr1YlxXIbq3urizcHVVdyGu/s1200/DWM%20580%20cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="848" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA0OD4pooHdG9-rVl3B4lnyR3OwHeSFlrSz5A52hvvSVSKoiUacgtzd0xFzJ4QhQxsPZniOkd6rTkUA2htachFKQPqYbXv86Ts7hvZVAa1HwpCN6AwVaa7Xf271ULMzqjujxI_MGNFcARR5X1t3AGRMcCldw9Z_iqZ4Nr1YlxXIbq3urizcHVVdyGu/w452-h640/DWM%20580%20cover.jpg" width="452" /></a></div><p></p><p>Another month and, I am very pleased to be able to say, another piece in <i>Doctor Who Magazine</i>. Issue 580, which came out last week, has in it a feature I was asked to write about the Big Finish Productions <i>Doctor Who</i> audio play <i>Spare Parts</i>, marking 20 years since its release. Once again I was very flattered to be asked to write a piece, and it was great fun to put together, speaking to various fans and admirers of the story about just why it holds such a strong appeal and has been recognised almost since the start as one of the finest Big Finish stories.</p><p>As always, <i>DWM</i> is available from WH Smith's, many supermarkets <a href="https://doctorwhomagazine.com/">or online</a>.</p>Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-17098673668223089202022-06-30T20:34:00.002+01:002022-06-30T20:34:30.476+01:00Ice Cool<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDGRaG4y3iiKOyuuMb-DnoYS3fATFtNqMzEeR8Xp_Lvi_L7SUObRtNWI31q7nSWrYiKA5lsyAWqdM9t4yL-YCLbYVCkfwvfhDM3j-l__IP9DR7NLwOqlFGgdv3w3MRSGNfg33FvCzY6BkRLm4DtDe5bs0pwKn7vz6LTCas0JPvrHSGKe263W-WA8Bd/s843/DWM%201967%20cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="843" data-original-width="595" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDGRaG4y3iiKOyuuMb-DnoYS3fATFtNqMzEeR8Xp_Lvi_L7SUObRtNWI31q7nSWrYiKA5lsyAWqdM9t4yL-YCLbYVCkfwvfhDM3j-l__IP9DR7NLwOqlFGgdv3w3MRSGNfg33FvCzY6BkRLm4DtDe5bs0pwKn7vz6LTCas0JPvrHSGKe263W-WA8Bd/w452-h640/DWM%201967%20cover.jpg" width="452" /></a></p><p>I'm very pleased to have another little professional writing update.</p><p>I was recently asked to write another piece for <i>Doctor Who Magazine</i>, this time for their latest special edition which was released earlier this month. It's another in their <i>Chronicles</i> series of year-themed specials, which I was fortunate to write a piece <a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2021/10/party-like-its-1983.html">for the 1983 edition</a> of last year.</p><p>This time around 1967 is the year in focus, and I was asked to contribute an article about the actor Sonny Caldinez, who died in April at the age of 89. As well as being an actor he was variously a wrestler, a stuntman and a bodyguard throughout various stages of his life, and appeared in five <i>Doctor Who</i> stories - the first two of which came in 1967, hence his inclusion here. Four of those appearances were as an Ice Warrior, hence the title of this entry... geddit!?</p><p>As always, it was a great honour and a privilege to be asked to do a piece. I still can't believe the incredible good fortune I have to occasionally be able to write pieces about <i>Doctor Who</i>... and get paid for it, too!</p><p>Anyway, as always, the magazine is available from WH Smith's, various supermarkets and <a href="https://www.panini.co.uk/shp_gbr_en/doctor-who-chronicles-issue-5-1967-gbdrwz028-uk02.html">the Panini website</a>.</p>Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-63994200732966450222022-05-30T17:25:00.002+01:002022-05-30T17:25:44.794+01:00Restoration of the Daleks<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMEo4z7NJ0nhL29okHoII1qtX6ENqmugg1jVkHF9qztNyJIrT3XnG1EV-LmsBKeZ3AlvAmDf0KNxSm4HyCcXcUOQYncWHiZb7xibFCrLePGLaTNHxE4ICISX8Q4VgrX98C4h4MaOoJCcNS7HeGz4WRP5mOUa1GUK9fYSYVzLjv5xzMsnHFsXuwdwve/s1754/DWM%20578%20cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1754" data-original-width="1240" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMEo4z7NJ0nhL29okHoII1qtX6ENqmugg1jVkHF9qztNyJIrT3XnG1EV-LmsBKeZ3AlvAmDf0KNxSm4HyCcXcUOQYncWHiZb7xibFCrLePGLaTNHxE4ICISX8Q4VgrX98C4h4MaOoJCcNS7HeGz4WRP5mOUa1GUK9fYSYVzLjv5xzMsnHFsXuwdwve/w453-h640/DWM%20578%20cover.jpg" width="453" /></a></p><p></p><p>The new issue of Panini's <i>Doctor Who Magazine</i>, number 578, came out last Thursday, and I'm fortunate enough to have written a piece for it. Not to do with the new Doctor casting on the front cover, but very exciting to be in a 'new Doctor' issue!</p><p>My piece is about the restoration work which has been carried out on the two 1960s Dalek movies, for their new 4K re-release. I must admit that these films are not exactly my favourite iteration of <i>Doctor Who</i>, but I do have a certain nostalgic affection for the second one, on the basis that it was one of the first - if not <i>the</i> first - <i>Doctor Who</i> VHS tape I ever owned. It was given to me by my brother's friend Damien when I was very young, perhaps as young as six or seven.</p><p>In fact, I even still own the tape - sort of. It's been in my parents' attic for the past 18 years or so, but oddly enough I came across it just the other week when I was visiting them. I wanted to retrieve some books from a big box full of my things in the attic, and among the assorted odds-and-ends I had to move out of the way to find the books I wanted was that very VHS tape, thirty-odd years since I first owned it!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9jBX4o2chje3qz53lr9J7KmR3x-Ex9Xa2wu3-OctU1Nzav37wU0Q2RR3pBRPsA54q8e90rQE3oas9pG7CJC57mnm0HrAXqKPod2dbz4ALc626oAGbzMm4kgj7KMzxEpkbpF2HHxnGYPHQMZGhvG9H8l-R3fXY2peMtLq8XCj6umsS9ampQF_5CZqB/s2692/DIOE%20edit.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2692" data-original-width="1622" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9jBX4o2chje3qz53lr9J7KmR3x-Ex9Xa2wu3-OctU1Nzav37wU0Q2RR3pBRPsA54q8e90rQE3oas9pG7CJC57mnm0HrAXqKPod2dbz4ALc626oAGbzMm4kgj7KMzxEpkbpF2HHxnGYPHQMZGhvG9H8l-R3fXY2peMtLq8XCj6umsS9ampQF_5CZqB/w386-h640/DIOE%20edit.jpg" width="386" /></a></div><p>One particularly nice thing about doing this piece was that it wasn't something I pitched - I was specifically asked to do it, which is always very flattering. Always an ego-boost to be actually sought out and commissioned to do a piece of professional writing!</p><p>Anyway, <i>DWM</i> 578 is now on-sale at WH Smith's and all good newsagents, or <a href="https://www.panini.co.uk/shp_gbr_en/magazines-comics-books/doctor-who/magazines-and-comics.html">via the Panini website</a>. I hope you like the piece if you do have a read!</p>Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-8732402519252900352022-02-07T20:19:00.001+00:002022-02-07T20:19:41.553+00:00Harbour Writes<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV4_b39lo-rosxK5uLKnPrhef0qei6oDHRi8M2SfUgZMW8iS4WTTthU4IvwGRA8qrD3DI68nUGHZm6mFwPz99IClZmBaEwGcUrpjTxs-AxN0LxGgSQIaasPuWLeSPnPXZ-FtCjpd6ltM_7PoUn6KEiesB7ZOo-W_tSzhOgRCG7A6SxuGaRHfqH1TuS/s1200/Feb 22 DWM.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="848" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV4_b39lo-rosxK5uLKnPrhef0qei6oDHRi8M2SfUgZMW8iS4WTTthU4IvwGRA8qrD3DI68nUGHZm6mFwPz99IClZmBaEwGcUrpjTxs-AxN0LxGgSQIaasPuWLeSPnPXZ-FtCjpd6ltM_7PoUn6KEiesB7ZOo-W_tSzhOgRCG7A6SxuGaRHfqH1TuS/w453-h640/Feb 22 DWM.jpg" width="453" /></a></div><p></p><p>The latest edition of <i>Doctor Who Magazine</i>, issue 574, is now out and I'm pleased to say that I'm fortunate enough to have a piece in it. Called <i>Harbouring Ambitions</i>, it uses some of the material I gathered for <i><a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Long%20Game">The Long Game</a></i> to tell the story of how the Nick Berry vehicle <i>Harbour Lights</i> almost ended up getting <i>Doctor Who</i> back onto the air five years earlier than it actually happened. </p><p>I'm very grateful once again to Marcus and Peter at <i>DWM</i> for running the piece, and also for them very kindly again giving me one of the little contributor profile spots on page three, as they did when they published <a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2021/06/donald-wilson-said.html">my Donald Wilson piece</a> last summer.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEyt_rdTbAsyS7lL92Wr4exNW9CuM9H92UAeLyjX8-1rrR1CHX43WcfctSlo-pOEam4uIxEPB3QqbaK3WcoiHbnnddQqKBNO43yEnFXuVz2hgBU0K4MdAjPXvoIPzGxH_yThKwe6y8Mik0xCFJUWc_Ekmk3ByqqlBm_dB6jKE4X4ne9KPderAyrCCx/s2048/Feb 22 page 3 boy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1772" data-original-width="2048" height="346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEyt_rdTbAsyS7lL92Wr4exNW9CuM9H92UAeLyjX8-1rrR1CHX43WcfctSlo-pOEam4uIxEPB3QqbaK3WcoiHbnnddQqKBNO43yEnFXuVz2hgBU0K4MdAjPXvoIPzGxH_yThKwe6y8Mik0xCFJUWc_Ekmk3ByqqlBm_dB6jKE4X4ne9KPderAyrCCx/w400-h346/Feb 22 page 3 boy.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"></p><p>The article also appears to have the desired effect of perhaps interesting a few more people in picking up copies of <i>The Long Game</i>, as a couple of extremely nice tweets about it appeared over the weekend. It would be blatant showing off to include them here, of course... But I am by no means beyond that, so here they are!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSEdOcZKMjoKH4Hd2Nzew-LRCGEVCqWjyeP3LsIynUaKhXcnLzSaZfrgAP87gKuG16PqyaN-tauHPdFzcSmQmCRcLNiCPK4bR8BGPwFbHm-GvVPqOxgyIB0NLGrcD207SPJBJeUPNonU4RcJiVyxp6QKZyp02oF5tm0MiPaOOqiEMzX2eMy9t7jhqF/s1206/Feb 22 tweet 1.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1206" data-original-width="740" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSEdOcZKMjoKH4Hd2Nzew-LRCGEVCqWjyeP3LsIynUaKhXcnLzSaZfrgAP87gKuG16PqyaN-tauHPdFzcSmQmCRcLNiCPK4bR8BGPwFbHm-GvVPqOxgyIB0NLGrcD207SPJBJeUPNonU4RcJiVyxp6QKZyp02oF5tm0MiPaOOqiEMzX2eMy9t7jhqF/w392-h640/Feb 22 tweet 1.png" width="392" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLhqEjjDJDBrgAQeoK59tbScFWxuJACEO8KQkScrR8g1-yasoC3cRtujRdKo74M6A5obOqdPiWDlcksGGF0NMrGSQ-N82X4OEu0pode-_5k7Lez3XNWdd-uSsqW_rYtCzs0ZX581iUArFY3F735XfY62syI4KyMNQsF1SwPNRIbU2UtwmJMHf7IE1d/s2164/Feb 22 tweet 2.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2164" data-original-width="752" height="1136" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLhqEjjDJDBrgAQeoK59tbScFWxuJACEO8KQkScrR8g1-yasoC3cRtujRdKo74M6A5obOqdPiWDlcksGGF0NMrGSQ-N82X4OEu0pode-_5k7Lez3XNWdd-uSsqW_rYtCzs0ZX581iUArFY3F735XfY62syI4KyMNQsF1SwPNRIbU2UtwmJMHf7IE1d/w394-h1136/Feb 22 tweet 2.png" width="394" /></a></div>Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-58750071062074470662022-01-31T13:06:00.003+00:002022-01-31T13:07:28.672+00:00Paper Talk<p>It turned out that last week ended up being quite a prolific one for my appearances in assorted publications - not only the <a href="https://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2022/01/extra-extra.html">mentions of the Nexus documentary in the <i>Radio Times</i> and <i>The Sunday Times</i></a>, but I also had a newspaper feature I'd written published and was the subject of another.</p><p>Last week, last Wednesday in fact, saw the 65th anniversary of the first ever East Anglian regional TV opt-out on BBC Television, on January the 26th 1957. Not perhaps the most notable of anniversaries, but always being one for a bit of broadcasting history - especially for broadcasting history connected to the bit of the BBC where I work, and which nobody else is likely to notice or even mark - I decided to <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0bkc9hz">make a radio package</a> about it to go out on our afternoon show. This was particularly driven by the fact that some audio from the broadcast actually still exists, albeit in quite poor quality.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0bkc9hz" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="682" data-original-width="1210" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiyGGGb1ZyczKR8mdsTJoDS4KEb9lXHkbzKpLEqxUAz8Ys8K6xJfEpwT__4ezhJQef6dh6z25bF9AXRfRX5sOrXy6OKB5CsHpnzhL74O_lJJQXqMpGSGBtPT1WpPF3yzrCKttwOLDeHvMWlzHN9uz2-XqJv5Wp4jFzy3HrCDNocrWXsz66BBvvd9vAy=w400-h225" width="400" /></a></div><p>The piece duly went out on Wednesday, but while I'd been making it I came up with the idea of seeing if the <i>Eastern Daily Press</i> might be interested in a feature about it, too. I submitted this to them earlier this month but wasn't sure whether or not it was going to be any use to them. As it turned out, however, they actually ended up running it on Tuesday - and it also appeared in Norwich's <i>Evening News</i>, and in the <i>EDP</i>'s Suffolk sister paper, the <i>East Anglian Daily Times</i>, the first occasion upon which any of my work has appeared there. You can read the piece online on the <i>EDP</i> website by <a href="https://www.edp24.co.uk/lifestyle/heritage/the-history-of-bbc-in-east-anglia-8631660">clicking here</a>.</p><p>So, with the Nexus documentary having gone out on 4 Extra on Tuesday, I managed to be a writer and a broadcaster on the same day without having lifted a finger during the course of the day at doing either!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.edp24.co.uk/lifestyle/heritage/the-history-of-bbc-in-east-anglia-8631660" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="872" data-original-width="1570" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEihluuDB7adgnz8D-QmmEJ6U3KfNy5v_JhWIFhZllaBxH2kn-7mt7BU4lt0xFldIlHxBvC1D0dZw19FlA4qekRboFPpbJJ9fYaESKDBF8oz_n0OiT6xCEtmpDZNYqfByoM-iYl5112jv7LsByw92r-OXfAxQ_Hf3eW1kcPUhSPcEVymycgg_YMqKrXU=w400-h223" width="400" /></a></div><p>Then on Wednesday I had a message from Paul, an old friend of mine back home in Sussex, telling me that a piece about me and <i>The Long Game</i> had <a href="https://www.worthingherald.co.uk/arts-and-culture/film-and-tv/how-doctor-who-was-revived-for-television-3535039">appeared on the website</a> of one of my old local papers, the <i>Worthing Herald</i>. I'd actually written to them a few months ago thinking I might perhaps be able to get a bit of local publicity down there, but nothing had appeared so I'd assumed it hadn't been of any use or interest.</p><p>Then suddenly last week they evidently decided it was, and the piece appeared - I believe also in the print edition, although I haven't actually been able to see a copy of that. If anyone has one, or a scan, do please let me know!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.worthingherald.co.uk/arts-and-culture/film-and-tv/how-doctor-who-was-revived-for-television-3535039" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="920" data-original-width="1198" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiLUbCmpgnejdpXZDbMZ8eoa_DczIxvAXtoUsztDKMTFKggc2dWbqjCdf_QFE0XC0iG8bzn0JsafShonXGoly5M4ucqMj3d_3OTAzgiAHgF1Xw1JgRMgj7Sgr2-c9Q3gXvH_KunpoghFNzkTLgpiDP2vNj4BoBaXS7aYHUrCCRt70H54KyY5Wo2LQP_=w400-h308" width="400" /></a></div>Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-51266371956151571522022-01-25T19:29:00.005+00:002022-01-31T12:37:08.238+00:00Extra! Extra!<p>It was a very proud moment for me today, as after working in radio for 15 years I achieved a bit of an unexpected first - presenting a programme on one of the BBC's national radio stations.</p><p>I'd mentioned in <a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2021/12/at-gate-of-year.html">my previous blog entry</a> on New Year's Eve that there might be something more coming up from <a href="https://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2021/09/into-nexus.html">the Nexus documentary I made last year</a>. What I couldn't say at the time, because it hadn't yet been announced, was that BBC Radio 4 Extra had decided <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0013smq">to broadcast the programme</a>. I'd pitched it to them not long after the original broadcast, suggesting I could make a 25-minute cutdown focusing on the more famous of the interviewees.</p><p>To my surprise, however, after having a listen they decided they'd like to take the entire thing - and it went out at 11am this morning. 4 Extra programmes get several outings in their week of broadcast, so it's also going out again at 9pm this evening, and twice again on Saturday.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhJ1tyUPCuHV0D6VuTQ_vzuCK-dICLi9i3151l4qtmeMD-0GeijOKKTo16160GmCSBEUdfn5gc9RWIu-0FuuEMZYOC9-awBUVLMW3VXYvUGiUrZt6YT8fBJiWBN3f-RAvomdvbBf1Aos9vB0_q3kY3-0TGm1AcT0Zv_1Z5N8Wx0XUHTjhalO8_ht1FY=s1224" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="810" data-original-width="1224" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhJ1tyUPCuHV0D6VuTQ_vzuCK-dICLi9i3151l4qtmeMD-0GeijOKKTo16160GmCSBEUdfn5gc9RWIu-0FuuEMZYOC9-awBUVLMW3VXYvUGiUrZt6YT8fBJiWBN3f-RAvomdvbBf1Aos9vB0_q3kY3-0TGm1AcT0Zv_1Z5N8Wx0XUHTjhalO8_ht1FY=w400-h265" width="400" /></a></div><p>This is only the second time I have managed to get one of my documentaries onto national radio, and the first time it's been one that I've presented as well as having produced. The previous one was <a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-boy-from-brazil.html">my Ayrton Senna documentary</a>, which BBC Radio 5 Live ran three times in 2014 and 2015. However, in that case, while I produced the programme I didn't present it - narration duties on that occasion were taken on by the great Rob Bonnet.</p><p>5 Live did also take another documentary of mine later on in 2017, and it was billed in the <i>Radio Times</i> and everything, but never in the event went out - due to a last-minute schedule change to cover England in the Rugby League World Cup semi-finals.</p><p>So I was, as you can imagine, incredibly pleased about the Nexus programme being taken on by 4 Extra - but even more pleased with the response it's already received. The <i>Radio Times</i> made it one of their 'Today's Choice' selections, and <i>The Sunday Times</i> also flagged it up:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZ31ybtov68Jv_0s83R2M9Jd-JsxYLHgG_zHd85moNTeSEM4hZXWgsLKkBtxMfTHg2q6B_C82ORHesVqRLjMLOEH4FrUFWuQNA8MV6LnIiPTSlmFiLEKWi_rcSkIUbWOC-QY4v4YCU_E1BDJLb4Av4Bmf4w2ieJDWXvj3BDI0TtV5C3YaSWv67ZTNN=s5786" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5786" data-original-width="1660" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZ31ybtov68Jv_0s83R2M9Jd-JsxYLHgG_zHd85moNTeSEM4hZXWgsLKkBtxMfTHg2q6B_C82ORHesVqRLjMLOEH4FrUFWuQNA8MV6LnIiPTSlmFiLEKWi_rcSkIUbWOC-QY4v4YCU_E1BDJLb4Av4Bmf4w2ieJDWXvj3BDI0TtV5C3YaSWv67ZTNN=w184-h640" width="184" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjToDWmIbzAAW-mVB7tR1DJdyEHmzsaoSDkiNgGM3RzEZLrC3oZtraqqGCRYb1gQ_ojUg7eguowZY5Hq4wqsnrE1Lt3e79PZf5L5YWUrcV9T0MwO80aIGQBkbC9jM8f_f28N_wExoPON5eag7ocW6wVRvSMNwlby4V-l9sTJDJGYonIrLVk_6AAJ4Jm=s3873" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3873" data-original-width="1960" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjToDWmIbzAAW-mVB7tR1DJdyEHmzsaoSDkiNgGM3RzEZLrC3oZtraqqGCRYb1gQ_ojUg7eguowZY5Hq4wqsnrE1Lt3e79PZf5L5YWUrcV9T0MwO80aIGQBkbC9jM8f_f28N_wExoPON5eag7ocW6wVRvSMNwlby4V-l9sTJDJGYonIrLVk_6AAJ4Jm=w324-h640" width="324" /></a></div><p>It still amazes me to see just how far this programme has been able to go. When I came up with the idea of doing it, I did worry it was a bit niche even for a local radio station; that it might not interest anybody who hadn't been a student at the UEA, or even then who hadn't been involved in some way with the TV station. But it seems that I was very wrong about that - and very pleased to have been so, of course!</p><p>There's just something so wonderfully BBC-ish about having been on between one of Bert Coules' Sherlock Holmes adaptations, and an episode of <i>The Goon Show</i>...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgCbSvTNnxDGVEl__2uk3S5ZkBy2owrDBmWeeX-NrPKwTezCLCv56BiC_nIV_obTX4Yj0-xUYum6asvt2-kSf0SCSZlpZhrnirwuWf_XNBYTtNmL8okWGpuXORB3r2X43UG26kSsSkQTS6MhBvnp090Gfjm27mPdeS_bHzSJVwmS8MbserOIqkBvqru=s1600" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="720" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgCbSvTNnxDGVEl__2uk3S5ZkBy2owrDBmWeeX-NrPKwTezCLCv56BiC_nIV_obTX4Yj0-xUYum6asvt2-kSf0SCSZlpZhrnirwuWf_XNBYTtNmL8okWGpuXORB3r2X43UG26kSsSkQTS6MhBvnp090Gfjm27mPdeS_bHzSJVwmS8MbserOIqkBvqru=w288-h640" width="288" /></a></div>Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-7186582992305586252021-12-31T20:24:00.008+00:002023-12-31T17:56:14.825+00:00At the Gate of the Year<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZGX6DIacEcXX65OJUvYYg_Z-EP-327PKvf4y4Af1BhzpHPU_WqNJ-mFuITWTmUYohrwKjk-4nLMZ2CEnoXVaEKV0sDGQLnqNoIuJXMFORBOwlfRsK11jeKr4j95ebpFRIeh0wIOat8e37dTTa7mbSLcedKvoO5uDyV0i0w-iGZJ_pYwL5d7K2XSCo=s4000" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZGX6DIacEcXX65OJUvYYg_Z-EP-327PKvf4y4Af1BhzpHPU_WqNJ-mFuITWTmUYohrwKjk-4nLMZ2CEnoXVaEKV0sDGQLnqNoIuJXMFORBOwlfRsK11jeKr4j95ebpFRIeh0wIOat8e37dTTa7mbSLcedKvoO5uDyV0i0w-iGZJ_pYwL5d7K2XSCo=w480-h640" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: white;">A lovely Christmas present from my friend Anna and her husband Will - <br />a wooden version of Stuart Manning and Andrew Orton's cover for The Long Game</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: center;"></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing">I’m not generally given to gloomy introspection – well,
no more or less so than the average person, I suspect. Of course, every so often
I’ll have one of those long, dark evenings of “<i>What’s the point? What am I
doing? Why am I doing it?</i>” and all that. But on the whole, I amble along in
life as best I can, and perfectly happily.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing">But when it comes to New Year’s Eve, I do often find it
to be a fairly bleak occasion, at least in the last little bit running up to midnight. Due to its very nature, it lends itself
all-too-readily to looking back not just over the past year, but taking stock
of your existence as a whole, and being drawn to the inevitable question: “<i>Have
I wasted my life…?</i>” So, even though the New Year’s Eve gloominess always
fades away with the festivities and is gone by morning, it’s worth taking the opportunity
to look back, and to celebrate some good and positive achievements from the
year.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">In basic terms I have not, it’s true, achieved my grand ambition
in 2021. I am not a published novelist, nor am I anywhere <i>near</i> to being
any closer to achieving that aim. I wrote very little fiction in 2021, and nothing
that would ever be submittable for publication in any way, shape or form.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">This does not, on the whole, mark the year out from most
of the others through which I have lived.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">On the other hand, however, writing-wise, this has
unquestionably been by far and away the most successful – and to be mercenary
about it, certainly the most profitable – year of my life and ‘writing career’
(hah!) to date. I had a book published – a non-fiction book, but still a book,
and one of which I am very proud. A lot of people have bought and enjoyed it.
Even this week, even today, I’ve still been receiving lovely messages from
readers of <i><a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Long%20Game">The Long Game</a></i>. And yesterday AJ Black put up a very nice
piece, and an interview with me for those who’d like to know a bit more about
the writing of the book, <a href="https://ajblackwriter.com/2021/12/30/book-review-author-interview-the-long-game-paul-hayes/">on his website</a>.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">I wrote pieces <a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2021/06/at-last-1948-article.html">for the BBC website</a>, and <a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2021/06/donald-wilson-said.html">for <i>Doctor Who
Magazine</i></a> again after a few years’ break. I wrote for the <i>Eastern Daily
Press</i> when my Nexus documentary was broadcast – a documentary which gained
<a href="http://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2021/09/into-nexus.html">a huge amount of national media coverage</a>, and got me a piece on the <i>Today</i>
programme on Radio 4. That documentary is still creating opportunities, too; there
should hopefully be some more exciting news to share about that very soon.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">I do sometimes, in those occasional gloomy and
introspective moments whenever they do happen to arise, wonder if I put too
much effort into radio. Work hard on those projects which take up my spare time
as well, because it’s easier than trying to knuckle down and do some writing. Whether,
if I had a dull job which I didn’t enjoy, I might have made more of an effort
with my fiction and actually <i>got</i> somewhere with it by now.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">But this is, of course, nonsense. I am in the hugely
fortunate and privileged position of having a job that I enjoy. A job that,
yes, like any other has its occasional frustrations and irritations. But one
which doesn’t give me that soul-crushing despair of, “<i>Oh Christ, I’ve got to
go to work today…</i>” whenever I open my eyes in the morning.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">I do understand and appreciate how very lucky I am to
have that. And I am always very well aware that it will not last forever – at some
point, sooner or later, it will come to an end and I will have to re-join the
real world. And such thoughts of it being a distraction are probably just excuses
– the reason I’m not a published author of fiction is, when it comes down to
it, simply because I am not really good enough at it.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">Would having a novel published make me a happy and
complete human being? Would it leave me content for the rest of my days? Well… almost
certainly not. There’d always be the next thing to want to do. I am aware of
that, too.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">But I’d still like to know how it feels!</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">Perhaps I can try and take a more positive step in that
direction, somehow, during 2022. What that step might be, or in which direction
it should be, I have no idea. However, I suppose actually sitting down and <i>writing</i>
some more fiction would probably be a good start…</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">Overall, though, 2021 has been very good to me, and very
successful. Fiction, aside, I cannot complain at all. I can only hope anyone
reading this has had as positive a year, and if not that 2022 treats you much
more kindly.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">Happy New Year, everybody!</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-73682355822089250602021-12-29T20:48:00.004+00:002021-12-29T21:13:34.686+00:00The Book Tour That Didn't Tour<p>I've mentioned a few times on here over the past couple of months various podcasts which have been kind enough to invite me on to talk about <i>The Long Game</i>. And since I've been fortunate enough to appear on a couple more since my last blog entry here, here's the full run-down of <i>The Long Game</i> Podcast Book Tour:</p><p>This all began in October, before the book even came out - with the "Australian leg" the book tour being my very first podcast interview, a chat with <i>The Doctor Who Show</i>:</p><p>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" allowtransparency="true" data-name="pb-iframe-player" height="300" scrolling="no" src="https://www.podbean.com/player-v2/?from=embed&i=fv24h-10fb4a2-pb&square=1&share=1&download=1&skin=f6f6f6&btn-skin=8bbb4e&size=300" style="border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);" title="Interview: The Inside Story of How the BBC Brought Back Doctor Who" width="100%"></iframe> </p><p>Then we had the UK leg, still ahead of the book being published, with interviews for the <i>Something Who</i> podcast...</p><p><iframe allowfullscreen="" allowtransparency="true" data-name="pb-iframe-player" height="300" scrolling="no" src="https://www.podbean.com/player-v2/?from=embed&i=uekhp-110b51b-pb&square=1&share=1&download=1&skin=f6f6f6&btn-skin=8bbb4e&size=300" style="border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);" title="Episode 49: The Voyage Home" width="100%"></iframe></p><p>And then for Paul Kerensa's wonderful <i>British Broadcasting Century</i> series...</p><p><iframe allowfullscreen="" allowtransparency="true" data-name="pb-iframe-player" height="300" scrolling="no" src="https://www.podbean.com/player-v2/?from=embed&i=k3psp-111b290-pb&square=1&share=1&download=1&skin=f6f6f6&btn-skin=8bbb4e&size=300" style="border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);" title="Out with the Old: The First BBC New Year’s Eve" width="100%"></iframe></p><p>After publication day in November, the UK leg continued with an interview for the <i>Bigger on the Inside</i> podcast. I was particularly pleased with my answer at the end here about what may be some of the reasons for the enduring popularity of <i>Doctor Who</i>:</p><p><iframe frameborder="0" height="188px" scrolling="no" src="https://embed.acast.com/5f2b448ef74463290994581f/61817fb2934ed7001b8b4513" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" title="Embed Player" width="100%"></iframe></p><p>Then most recently came the Canadian leg! These interviews were recorded in one order and released in the other - so on December the 19th, <i>Radio Free Skaro</i> released their episode - their 829th, would you believe! - featuring their interview with me:</p><p><iframe allowfullscreen="" allowtransparency="true" data-name="pb-iframe-player" height="300" scrolling="no" src="https://www.podbean.com/player-v2/?i=948cd-11b9a12a-dir&square=1&share=1&download=1&skin=f6f6f6&btn-skin=8bbb4e&size=300" style="border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);" title="Radio Free Skaro #829 - Out of the Wilderness" width="100%"></iframe></p><p>The Canadian leg then continued a few days later with the release of my final podcast interview to date, with Graeme Burk's <i>Reality Bomb</i>:</p>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" height="90" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" scrolling="no" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/21584825/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/backward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/c51f43/" style="border: none;" title="Libsyn Player" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="100%"></iframe><div><br /></div><div>I hugely enjoyed recording all of these interviews - not simply having the chance to talk about the book, of course, but also just the opportunity to have a good old in-depth chat about <i>Doctor Who</i>. Which is something I don't, actually, often get the opportunity to do all that much of.</div><div><br /></div><div>Obviously there's a certain amount of overlap between all of these interviews, so if you're somehow mad enough to listen to all of them there will be a certain amount of repetition. But I did try my best to vary things up a bit, so that if anyone did hear more than one they wouldn't feel entirely cheated!</div><div><br /></div><div>Thank you to all of these podcasts for very kindly having me on, and for being interested in <i>The Long Game</i>. And needless to say, if you have a <i>Doctor Who</i> podcast and fancy having me on for a chat about the book, do let me know!</div>Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8934025834215628121.post-12846793667421975002021-11-15T16:32:00.004+00:002021-11-17T23:59:38.643+00:00More Book Bits!<p>No sooner had I put up <a href="https://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2021/11/under-review.html">the previous post</a> about some reviews <i>The Long Game</i> has received, then another one popped up! An extremely generous one, too, written by Frank Danes for the <i>Doctor Who</i> Companion website. It's another incredibly kind review with lots of praise for the book, and should you wish to take a read you can find it by <a href="https://thedoctorwhocompanion.com/2021/11/05/reviewed-the-long-game-1996-2003-the-inside-story-of-how-the-bbc-brought-back-doctor-who/">clicking here</a>.</p><p>A page for <i>The Long Game</i> has also appeared on the Goodreads book review website, with a few reviews on there already and a four-star average rating so far, which is pretty bloody good! Again, the reviews are all very positive and kind. It seems to be going down well, this book! You can find the Goodreads page <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59479021-the-long-game">right here</a>.</p><p>(Although it should be said that some of the other books Goodreads reckons are by the same author are very much not! I did not write, for example, <i>Themes in Modern European History</i>!)</p><p>My podcast book tour has also continued, with an appearance on an episode of the <i>Bigger on the Inside</i> podcast, which was again good fun. Talking about the book, and more generally about the enduring appeal of <i>Doctor Who</i>. I managed to bring both death and Norwich City's recent form into the conversation, which you can listen to here:</p><iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="0" height="110px" src="https://embed.acast.com/5f2b448ef74463290994581f/how-did-the-bbc-save-doctor-who-interivew-with-paul-hayes" width="100%"></iframe><div><br /></div><div>The latest edition of <i>Doctor Who Magazine</i>, issue 571, came out this week, and carried a little story about the book in its <i>Gallifrey Guardian</i> news section. I've been a reader of <i>DWM</i> for nearly 27 years now, never missing an issue in that time, and in recent years I have been lucky enough to have the opportunity to write a few bits and pieces for the magazine and for some of its special editions. After all these years of reading the magazine, though, it is a unique thrill to feature as an item in the news!</div><div><br /></div><div>I've also continued to receive some lovely messages on Twitter and on the Gallifrey Base forum, from people who've read and enjoyed the book. Including enough pictures of various people's copies to form another line on <a href="https://notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2021/11/publication-day.html">my little "rogues' gallery"</a> of copies out and about in the wild!</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4Ptp0HiLZAc/YZKKP4S9EgI/AAAAAAAAB-s/nyHUvlpK8UUqvRULzkGKXDh7b2kmIrt7wCLcBGAsYHQ/s3477/Montage%2B3.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="905" data-original-width="3477" height="134" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4Ptp0HiLZAc/YZKKP4S9EgI/AAAAAAAAB-s/nyHUvlpK8UUqvRULzkGKXDh7b2kmIrt7wCLcBGAsYHQ/w517-h134/Montage%2B3.png" width="517" /></a></div><div><br /></div>There have been some very nice messages <i>sans</i> pictures, too, including one suggesting that <i>The Long Game</i> deserves to be nominated for a Hugo Award!<div><br /></div><div>Whether or not it deserves that I can't say, but... You know... If anyone wants to put in a good word...</div><div><br /></div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">Absolutely stunning piece of work investigating a moment in Doctor Who and BBC history that uncovers all kinds of info not heard before. Plenty of, I bet he won’t mention, oh he has. Right. <a href="https://t.co/z3eB0UXFVT">https://t.co/z3eB0UXFVT</a></p>— Stuart's (@feelinglistless) <a href="https://twitter.com/feelinglistless/status/1455588683415949335?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 2, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en"><a href="https://twitter.com/the_questmaster?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@the_questmaster</a> Just finished your frankly stunning account of all those years Doctor Who never came back on TV, until it actually did. Reads like a thriller and your access to so many of the movers and shakers along the way is to be applauded. A ‘Long Game’ well worth the wait.</p>— Sean Alexander (@seanHolyhead) <a href="https://twitter.com/seanHolyhead/status/1457368856750657536?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 7, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">Finished my copy tonight, what a brilliant read. It brings back memories of discussing various rumours in the pub and waiting for the new series to arrive. Thanks <a href="https://twitter.com/the_questmaster?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@the_questmaster</a> for all the work that went into it. <a href="https://t.co/tottwA7Cwn">https://t.co/tottwA7Cwn</a></p>— Jonathan Melville (@jon_melville) <a href="https://twitter.com/jon_melville/status/1457472969953918977?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 7, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">Just finished reading this. What a great, fascinating and entertaining read. Highly recommended for anyone with even the slightest interest in the struggles and dramas it took to get the Doctor back on our screens 👏🏼👏🏼</p>— Adrian Busby (@baznduffy) <a href="https://twitter.com/baznduffy/status/1458173383523323919?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 9, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">I've finished The Long Game 1996-2003: The Inside Story of How the BBC Brought Back Doctor Who by Paul Hayes. It's one of the best written and researched Doctor Who nonfiction books ever. It deserves a Best Related Work Hugo Award nomination. Highly recommended.</p>— Michael Damian Thomas (@michaeldthomas) <a href="https://twitter.com/michaeldthomas/status/1459275251557318656?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 12, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
Paul Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166773315195310268noreply@blogger.com0